aria-orientation
The aria-orientation
attribute indicates whether the element's orientation is horizontal, vertical, or unknown/ambiguous.
Description
It may be important for the user to know the orientation to know how to navigate certain widgets, as orientation impacts the expected behaviors of the left, right, up and down arrows. The aria-orientation
attribute is used to indicate to assistive technology users whether an element's orientation is horizontal
or vertical
, or undefined
.
Several widgets have default orientations:
Horizontal by default:
Vertical by default:
Each separator
should have aria-orientation
consistent with the separator's orientation.
When nodes in a tree are arranged horizontally instead of its default vertical orientation, or when a tab list is vertical instead of its default horizontal, the down arrow performs as a right arrow normally would, and the up arrow performs as a left arrow normally would. In these instances, assistive technology users need to know the widget's orientation so as to navigate correctly.
Up and down arrows are generally available for normal browser scrolling, even when focus is inside a tree or tab list. Include aria-orientation
to enable alerting users when a widget doesn't have the default, expected orientation and associated navigation.
Always remember that ARIA only modifies how assistive technology presents content to your users; altering the behavior of arrow keys requires JavaScript.
Values
horizontal
-
The element is oriented horizontally.
undefined
(default)-
The element's orientation is unknown/ambiguous.
vertical
-
The element is oriented vertically.
ARIAMixin API
Element.ariaOrientation
-
The
ariaOrientation
property, part of theElement
interface, reflects the value of thearia-orientation
attribute. ElementInternals.ariaOrientation
-
The
ariaOrientation
property, part of theElementInternals
interface, reflects the value of thearia-orientation
attribute.
Associated roles
Specifications
Specification |
---|
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) # aria-orientation |