Question about aria-roledescription in the 1.1 spec

Hi,
I've been reading through the spec because I have to write up internal guidelines for these things, and in reading aria-roledescription something jumped out at me.

Historically we've always said to developers don't put the role of an element in a label, like so:

<button aria-label="Attachment button"></button>

So, I'm not clear on how this is meant to be different, here is an excerpt from the 1.1 spec for aria-roledescription:

The following examples show the use of aria-roledescription to indicate that a button in a web-based email client is associated with an "attachment."

Example 27
<div role="button" tabindex="0" aria-roledescription="attachment button">family_reunion.jpg</div>
Example 28
<button aria-roledescription="attachment button">family_reunion.jpg</button>

http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#h-aria-roledescription

So is the guidance always for the use of this attribute to reflect the underlying role? What happens if developers don't?



Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
SSB BART Group, Inc.
bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com
415.624.2709 (o)
www.SSBBartGroup.com

Received on Thursday, 29 September 2016 22:04:16 UTC