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WAI-ARIA: Role=Term

Description

New in ARIA 1.1

A word or phrase with a corresponding definition. See related definition.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.

Example

HTML Example

<p>The <span role="term" id="sobsTerm">Sons of the Blue Spirit</span> was a society of high school students whose purpose it was to make surprise appearances at gatherings and events, and get the crowd going with a few playful stunts.</p>
<p>Sadly it wasn't long lived, because the <span role="definition" aria-labelledby="sobsTerm"SOBS</span> got into trouble for putting the letter "SOBS" on their society t-shirts.</p>

Characteristics

Superclass Role 

  • section

Related Concepts 

  • HTML dt

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

Semantic HTML

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.

Reference

W3C (opens new window)

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