aria-text

Description

The aria-text rule ensures that elements with role="text" do not contain focusable or interactive descendants. The role="text" attribute instructs assistive technologies to read the element’s content as a single, continuous string of text rather than treating it as a generic container. However, if the element contains interactive children such as links or buttons, those children become inaccessible because the role="text" suppresses their interactive semantics.

This rule meets WCAG requirements by:

1. Programmatic Role Accuracy (WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value): It ensures that ARIA roles accurately reflect the nature of the element, preventing a mismatch between the declared role and actual interactive content within.
2. Preserving Information and Relationships (WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships): It prevents content relationships, such as a link embedded within a paragraph, from being obscured by an incorrect role assignment.

To comply with this rule, use role="text" only on elements that contain purely static text with no interactive descendants.

Examples

This example shows a paragraph with role="text" containing an anchor link. The link becomes inaccessible to keyboard and screen reader users because role="text" suppresses the interactive semantics of the child element.

Removing role="text" keeps the link fully accessible and operable.

How to fix?

To fix violations of the aria-text rule, follow these steps:

• Remove role="text" from any element that contains interactive descendants such as links, buttons, or form inputs.

• If you need the content to be read as a continuous string, restructure the HTML so that all interactive elements are placed outside the role="text" container.

• Use role="text" only on elements containing purely static, non-interactive text where you specifically need to prevent assistive technologies from treating the container as a group.

Reference

• WCAG Success Criterion 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value

• WCAG Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships