[EuiMarkdownEditor][A11y] Fix invalid nested interactive elements

[mgadewoll]

Summary

Caused by: elastic/kibana#263605

The EUI markdown editor's drop zone div gets role="button" from react-dropzone by default, even when no drop handlers are configured. This wraps the textarea in a semantic button, triggering an axe-core "Interactive controls must not be nested" violation (WCAG 4.1.2 Level A).

This PR updates EuiMarkdownEditor by removing the added role="button" on the drop zone wrapper element.
This would result in invalid nested interactive elements as the button would nest the textarea.

The change removes the role completely, considering that the drop zone doesn't actually support keyboard interaction as is (it's also disabled via noKeyboard in the drop zone settings). The drop zone basically only works for mouse interaction while we're already making use of a standalone way via a button in the footer to add files instead.

API Changes

⚪ No API changes

Screenshots

Before	After
Screen.Recording.2026-04-30.at.14.06.10.mov	Screen.Recording.2026-04-30.at.14.06.42.mov

Impact Assessment

Note: Most PRs should be tested in Kibana to help gauge their Impact before merging.

• 🔴 Breaking changes — What will break? How many usages in Kibana/Cloud UI are impacted?
• 💅 Visual changes — May impact style overrides; could require visual testing. Explain and estimate impact.
• 🧪 Test impact — May break functional or snapshot tests (e.g., HTML structure, class names, default values).
• 🔧 Hard to integrate — If changes require substantial updates to Kibana, please stage the changes and link them here.

Impact level: 🟢 Low
The removes role might require snapshot updates.

Release Readiness

• Documentation: {link to docs page(s)}
• Figma: {link to Figma or issue}
• Migration guide: {steps or link, for breaking/visual changes or deprecations}
• Adoption plan (new features): {link to issue/doc or outline who will integrate this and where}

QA instructions for reviewer

💻 EuiMarkdownEditor storybook

• verify there is no regression with production
• verify adding files is possible via a) dragging files with the mouse OR b) adding them via keyboard using the dedicated upload button

Checklist before marking Ready for Review

• Filled out all sections above
• QA: Tested light/dark modes, high contrast, mobile, Chrome/Safari/Edge/Firefox, keyboard-only, screen reader
• QA: Tested in CodeSandbox and [Kibana](https://github.com/elastic/eui/blob/main/wiki/contributing-to-eui/testing/testing-in-kibana.md)
• QA: Tested docs changes
• Tests: Added/updated Jest, Cypress, and VRT
• Changelog: Added changelog entry
• Breaking changes: Added breaking change label (if applicable)

Reviewer checklist

• Approved Impact Assessment — Acceptable to merge given the consumer impact.
• Approved Release Readiness — Docs, Figma, and migration info are sufficient to ship.

[mgadewoll]

buildkite test this

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes an accessibility issue in EuiMarkdownEditor by removing the drop zone wrapper’s misleading role="button", which was creating an invalid nested interactive-element structure around the textarea.

Changes:

• Removes the default drop zone role in markdown_editor_drop_zone.tsx
• Adds a Storybook drop-zone scenario for manual QA
• Updates Jest snapshots and adds a changelog entry for the accessibility fix

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
packages/eui/src/components/markdown_editor/markdown_editor.stories.tsx	Adds a new DropZone story with a stateful wrapper for manual drag-and-drop testing.
packages/eui/src/components/markdown_editor/markdown_editor_drop_zone.tsx	Removes the drop zone wrapper’s role="button" assignment.
packages/eui/src/components/markdown_editor/__snapshots__/markdown_editor.test.tsx.snap	Updates rendered snapshots to reflect the removed role attribute.
packages/eui/changelogs/upcoming/9625.md	Documents the accessibility fix in the upcoming changelog.

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[elasticmachine]

💚 Build Succeeded

• Buildkite Build
• Commit: aaaf655
• Documentation website
• Storybook

History

• 💚 Build #3381 succeeded 7f24bed

cc @mgadewoll

[elasticmachine]

💚 Build Succeeded

• Buildkite Build
• Commit: aaaf655

History

• 💚 Build #6371 succeeded 7f24bed

cc @mgadewoll

[tkajtoch]

LGTM