Description
New in ARIA 1.1
A perceivable section of content that typically contains a graphical document, images, code snippets, or example text. The parts of a figure MAY be user-navigable.
Authors SHOULD provide a reference to the figure from the main text, but the figure need not be displayed at the same location as the referencing element. Authors MAY reference text serving as a caption using aria-describedby. Authors MAY provide a label using aria-label or MAY reference text serving as a label using aria-labelledby.
Assistive technologies SHOULD enable users to quickly navigate to figures. Mainstream user agents MAY enable users to quickly navigate to figures.
Example
HTML5 Example
<figure id="fig1" role="figure region"><svg id="fig1A" class="nested-figure" role="figure"aria-labelledby="fig1-caption, fig1A-caption"><!-- markup omitted--></svg><svg id="fig1B" class="nested-figure" role="figure"aria-labelledby="fig1-caption, fig1B-caption"><linearGradient id="reflect" spreadMethod="reflect"xlink:href="#repeat" /><text id="fig1B-caption" class="caption" dy="1em">b) spreadMethod="reflect"</text><rect role="img"y="25%" width="100%" height="75%" fill="url(#reflect)" ><title>A reflecting linear gradient</title><desc>The gradient again starts dark, slowly shifting to light, then quickly dark again. However, the next repeat shiftsquickly to the light, then slowly back dark. The original pattern is then repeated, followed by the reflectedversion again.</desc></rect></svg><figcaption id="fig1-caption">Figure 1: Repeating SVG gradients</figcaption></figure>
Characteristics
Superclass Role
- section
Related Concepts
- HTML figure
Inherited States and Properties
- 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
Name From
- author
Accessible Name Required
- False
Semantic HTML
Use the HTML5 <figure> tag for non-interactive figures.
<figure><img src="/img_pulpit.jpg" alt="The Pulpit Rock" width="304" height="228"></figure>
The role “figure” is meant to surround user-navigable information, which may contain content ranging from graphical images to textual code fragments to mathematical equations. As such, the content of a figure is navigable in the same manner as a named region or landmark.
A figure may be explicitly named using either aria-labelledby or aria-label, or even reference an external caption using aria-describedby.