The “heading” role is unnecessary for element “h1” to "h6".

HTML heading elements (<h1> through <h6>) have built-in semantic meaning that browsers and assistive technologies already understand. According to the WAI-ARIA specification, each of these elements carries an implicit heading role with a corresponding aria-level — <h1> has aria-level="1", <h2> has aria-level="2", and so on. When you explicitly add role="heading" to one of these elements, you’re telling the browser something it already knows, which clutters your markup without providing any benefit.

This pattern is part of a broader principle in ARIA authoring known as the first rule of ARIA: don’t use ARIA when a native HTML element already provides the semantics you need. Redundant ARIA roles can cause confusion for developers maintaining the code, as it suggests that the role might be necessary or that the element might not otherwise be recognized as a heading. In some edge cases, adding an explicit aria-level that doesn’t match the heading level (e.g., aria-level="3" on an <h1>) can create conflicting information for screen readers, leading to an inconsistent experience for users of assistive technologies.

The role="heading" attribute is designed for situations where you need to give heading semantics to a non-heading element, such as a <div> or <span>. In those cases, you must also include the aria-level attribute to specify the heading’s level. However, whenever possible, using native heading elements is always preferred over this ARIA-based approach.

How to fix it

1. Remove role="heading" from any <h1> through <h6> element.
2. Remove aria-level if it was added alongside the redundant role and matches the heading’s native level.
3. If you genuinely need a non-standard element to act as a heading, use role="heading" with aria-level on that element instead — but prefer native heading elements whenever possible.

Examples

❌ Redundant role on a native heading

<h1 role="heading" aria-level="1">Welcome to My Site</h1>
<h2 role="heading">About Us</h2>
<h3 role="heading" aria-level="3">Our Mission</h3>

All three headings will trigger the validator warning. The role="heading" and aria-level attributes are completely unnecessary here because the elements already convey this information natively.

✅ Native headings without redundant roles

<h1>Welcome to My Site</h1>
<h2>About Us</h2>
<h3>Our Mission</h3>

Simply removing the redundant attributes resolves the issue while preserving full accessibility.

✅ Correct use of the heading role on a non-heading element

In rare cases where you cannot use a native heading element, the heading role is appropriate on a generic element:

<div role="heading" aria-level="2">Section Title</div>

This tells assistive technologies to treat the <div> as a level-2 heading. Note that aria-level is required here since a <div> has no implicit heading level. That said, using a native <h2> is always the better choice:

<h2>Section Title</h2>

❌ Conflicting aria-level on a native heading

Be especially careful with this anti-pattern, where the explicit level contradicts the element:

<h1 role="heading" aria-level="3">Page Title</h1>

This sends mixed signals — the element is an <h1> but claims to be level 3. Screen readers may behave unpredictably. If you need a level-3 heading, use <h3>:

<h3>Page Title</h3>

Learn more:

MDN Reference

MDN: ARIA heading role

→