New in ARIA 1.1

The term role is used to explicitly identify a word or phrase for which a definition has been provided by the author or is expected to be provided by the user.

Authors SHOULD NOT use the term role on interactive elements such as links because doing so could prevent users of assistive technologies from interacting with those elements.

HTML Example

• section

• HTML dt

• aria-atomic
• aria-busy (state)
• aria-controls
• aria-current (state)
• aria-describedby
• aria-details
• aria-disabled (state)
• aria-dropeffect
• aria-errormessage
• aria-expanded (state)
• aria-flowto
• aria-grabbed (state)
• aria-haspopup
• aria-hidden (state)
• aria-invalid (state)
• aria-keyshortcuts
• aria-label
• aria-labelledby
• aria-live
• aria-owns
• aria-relevant
• aria-roledescription

• author

No HTML element equivalent.

The role “term” is meant to accompany and explicitly associate role=”definition”, which was missing in ARIA 1.0.

The attribute role=”term” must never be used on an interactive element, but instead must be used on container elements that include textual content or container elements that surround an interactive element (e.g., a link or button).

When role=”definition” is used, it must include aria-labelledby to point to the ID of the role=”term” element to explicitly associate the term to which the definition refers.