aria-roledescription flagged as an issue

[Tom-Wright]

I ran axe on a carousel with the aria-roledescription attribute and axe flagged it as a critical issue. Here is the issue description copied and pasted from axe:

Elements must only use allowed ARIA attributes
Issue description
Ensures ARIA attributes are allowed for an element's role

Impact: critical

To solve this violation, you need to:
Fix the following:
ARIA attribute is not widely supported in screen readers and assistive technologies: aria-roledescription

But aria-roledescription is allowed in the spec: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/examples/carousel/carousel-1.html?moreaccessible

You can run axe on that spec page to recreate the error (although I initially found it in a client site behind a firewall, it's the same).

Axe shouldn't flag this as an issue per the spec.

[straker]

Thanks for letting us know. I think a section with an aria-label and a div with role=group were overlooked in our initial testing of aria-roledescription. Will look into this.

[mfairchild365]

Some context on this issue: #1216

I did test a named section with aria-roledescription in a11ysupport.io and there are some AT/browser combinations that don't support it, including ones that axe considers when assessing the "accessibility supported" requirement.

That being said, lack of support does not result in a blocker. Lack of support simply renders it as a named section, which is fine. This likely satisfies point two under "Impact on ARIA"

2. If the feature's use does not have a negative impact on accessibility: allow, else

Just my two cents.

[straker]

aria-roledescription should only fail if used on an element without an explicit or implicit role. Otherwise if it's not supported by AT/browser combinations we've tested, we mark it as needs review and ask that you test it.

Both the region role and group role were not tested as part of https://codepen.io/straker/full/Xoybem, but I would expect that both elements are marked as needs review. If they are, then this is working as expected.

Edit: tested and both are marked as needs review as expected with the message "Check that the aria-roledescription is announced by supported screen readers."

[Tom-Wright]

Hi Steven,

I don't see the "Check that the aria-roledescription is announced by supported screen readers." message. I still see the same issue that I reported.

I went here and ran axe: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/examples/carousel/carousel-1.html?moreaccessible

The

with the aria-roledescription has the implicit label of group but is still throwing an error.

Do you see the "Check that the aria-roledescription is announced by supported screen readers." message here?

[straker]

Using axe-core v3.3.2 I don't see the error.

What version of axe and what browser are you using? If by chance you're using the Firefox extension, it's unfortunately a few versions behind where it should be.

[Tom-Wright]

Looks like axe 4.0.0 with Chrome 76.0.3809.132 (although initially I found it on Firefox).

[sergiy-talashko]

@straker @Tom-Wright
Just checked site with latest Axe browser extension version 4.4.1 and
Chrome 80.0.3987.149
And it show error with role="region" and aria-roledescription="Chart"
Same for using section tag or role="group".
If I use role="group" - everything is ok.

Issue description
Ensure aria-roledescription is only used on elements with an implicit or explicit role

Impact: serious

Element location:
div[aria-roledescription="Chart"]

Element source:
<div aria-roledescription="Chart" role="region">

fui, this message also showing:

We are not sure this is an issue, because:
Check that the aria-roledescription is announced by supported screen readers

So we can hide error.
But it's not an option for server-side testing and when we use Lighthouse which depend from Axe: