WAI-ARIA: aria-busy (State)
Description
Indicates an element is being modified and that assistive technologies MAY want to wait until the modifications are complete before exposing them to the user.
The default value of aria-busy is false for all elements. When aria-busy is true for an element, assistive technologies MAY ignore changes to content owned by that element and then process all changes made during the busy period as a single, atomic update when aria-busy becomes false.
If it is necessary to make multiple additions, modifications, or removals within a container element that is already either partially or fully rendered, authors MAY set aria-busy to true on the container element before the first change, and then set it to false when the last change is complete. For example, if multiple changes to a live region should be spoken as a single unit of speech, authors MAY set aria-busy to true while the changes are being made and then set it to false when the changes are complete and ready to be spoken.
If an element with role feed is marked busy, assistive technologies MAY defer rendering changes that occur inside the feed with the exception of user-initiated changes that occur inside the article that the user is reading during the busy period.
If changes to a rendered widget would create a state where the widget is missing required owned elements during script execution, authors MUST set aria-busy to true on the widget during the update process. For example, if a rendered tree grid required a set of simultaneous updates to multiple discontiguous branches, an alternative to replacing the complete tree element with a single update would be to mark the tree busy while each of the branches are modified.
Browser Compatibility
| desktop | mobile | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ariaBusy | ChromeFull support81 | EdgeFull support81 | FirefoxNo supportNo | Internet ExplorerNo supportNo | OperaFull support68 | SafariFull support12.1 | WebView AndroidFull support81 | Chrome AndroidFull support81 | Firefox for AndroidNo supportNo | Opera AndroidFull support58 | Safari on iOSFull support12.2 | Samsung InternetFull support13.0 |
Screen Reader Support
| Expectation | JAWS | Narrator | NVDA | Orca | TalkBack | VoiceOver (iOS) | VoiceOver (macOS) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Edge | Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Safari | |
| MUST convey the “false” value | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported | supported |
| MUST convey the “true” value | supported | supported | supported | none | none | none | none | none | none | none | none |
aria-busy Example
Temporarily stop updates being announced while busy
<ol aria-live="polite" aria-busy="true">
⋯
</ol>Characteristics
Used in Roles
- All elements of the base markup
Values
- True/False
Value representing either true or false. The default value for this value type is False, unless otherwise specified. - False (default)
- There are no expected updates for the element.
- True:
- The element is being updated.
Semantic HTML
No HTML element equivalent.
Reference
- WAI-ARIA 1.2 Specification
Refer to the notes from the WAI-ARIA 1.2 specification for more information on aria-busy. - A11Y Support
The screenreader compatibility for each of the ARIA attributes is taken from the A11Y Support. Please refer to the original source if screenreader compatibility is updated for aria-busy. - MDN Web Docs
The browser compatibility for each of the ARIA attributes is taken from the MDN Web Docs. Please refer to the original source if browser compatibility is updated for aria-busy.
