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From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Jun 16, 2025 6:52PM

The SC specifically states the status is exposed by change in role or in a
manner that does not require the status message to receive focus.
Aria-describedby, aria-labelledby, aria-label are designed to make
associated content programmatically determinable when the particular
element receives focus.
As such these cannot be used solely to satisfy SC 4.1.3 IMO.
Sailesh Panchang
Principal Accessibility Consultant

Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Deque Systems Inc | - Accessibility for Good | www.deque.com














On Mon, Jun 16, 2025 at 12:23 PM Steve Green via WebAIM-Forum <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I have given this a great deal of thought, helped greatly by Adrian
> Roselli's article at
> https://adrianroselli.com/2023/04/exposing-field-errors.html. My
> conclusion is that the “aria-describedby” attribute is not suitable for use
> as a live region with respect to conformance with success criterion 4.1.3.
> I will therefore not open an issue on the WCAG repo at this stage.
>
>
>
> For those who care about this arcane topic, the arguments for and against
> are:
>
>
>
> For
>
> * Section 4.8.1 of the W3C Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2<
> https://www.w3.org/TR/core-aam-1.2/#mapping_events_state-change>
> specification states that changes in the value of the “aria-describedby”
> attribute must be exposed as an event via the accessibility API (which
> would trigger the live region). This is currently a draft specification.
> * The technique works with NVDA screen reader and Chrome on Windows 11.
> * The technique should work with other Chromium-based browsers such as
> Microsoft Edge, Opera and Samsung Internet.
>
>
>
> Against
>
> * This use of the “aria-describedby” attribute is not included in any
> of the Sufficient Techniques for success criterion 4.1.3.
> * Section 5.8.1 of the W3C Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1<
> https://www.w3.org/TR/core-aam-1.1/#mapping_events_state-change>
> specification does not include the “aria-describedby” attribute. This is
> the current version of the specification. We do not know when v1.2 will be
> published or whether it will be modified before publication.
> * The technique is unlikely to currently work with other browsers such
> as Firefox and Safari. We do not know if or when they will adopt the W3C
> Core AAM 1.2 specification.
> * It is possible that the technique only works if the website
> automatically moves the focus to the form control that is in error.
> * We have not tested the technique with any other Chromium-based
> browsers or any other assistive technologies. In 2023, Adrian Roselli
> tested this and some other techniques with a large number of browsers and
> assistive technologies. His results are in line with our expectations.
>
>
>
> Steve
>
>
>