aria-flowto

The global aria-flowto attribute identifies the next element (or elements) in an alternate reading order of content. This allows assistive technology to override the general default of reading in document source order at the user's discretion.

Description

Web pages should be sequentially navigable. For this reason, developers are dissuaded from using the global tabindex attribute which can change tab order and the CSS order property, which can change visual order from the DOM order. However, in rare circumstances a reading path different from the source order is required. For such cases, the aria-flowto attribute can make the content more accessible for users of assistive technologies.

The global aria-flowto attribute lets the author indicate to assistive technology users which element or elements might want to be focused on next, providing an alternate reading order to the source order. This allows assistive technology to read a document in an order other than the default document source reading order.

When aria-flowto has a single id reference, it allows assistive technologies to, at the user's request, go to the element targeted via that id instead of reading the document in the order of the DOM. When the aria-flowto value uses a space separated list of multiple id references, assistive technology can provide the user with a list of path choices, with each id referenced being a choice. The path choice names are determined by the accessible name of each target element of the aria-flowto attribute.

Note: Setting aria-flow does not impact the content's tab order. It only provides users the option to follow a content path that doesn't match the DOM order when using tech that supports this attribute.

Values

id

Suggested next element in the reading order.

id list

Space separated list of ID values referencing the suggested elements the user may want to go to next in the alternate reading order of content.

Associated roles

Used in ALL roles.

Specifications

Specification
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA)
# aria-flowto

See Also