Intro to ARIA Roles

[grayghostvisuals]

Jotting down some ideas before I place them in gist form.

• ARIA roles describe what a widget does, and makes this information available to assistive technologies. Attaching a role gives assistive technologies information about how to handle each element
• Helps define widgets, such as a slider, and define page structure http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#landmark_roles, such as a navigation section. Roles can also describe a structure that organizes the content of a page
  For example if the thumb for a slider control is created using an img tag with appropriate alternative text, then a screen reader will likely announce the control as, "Graphic, thumb", as opposed to something more meaningful, such as "slider.
• One of the major problems with web applications is that any element can be used to make a widget. HTML elements already have pre-defined roles. The role given by the role attribute trumps the role of the native element.
• The ARIA specification maintains a list of roles http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/usage#usage_intro.

Roles are categorized as follows:

• Abstract Roles
• Widget Roles
• Document Structure Roles
• Landmark Roles

Spec
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles