- Success Criterion 1.3.1
- Conformance level A
Mismatched Parent and Child Roles in a Custom ARIA Widget
1.3.1 — Info and Relationships
Scenario
Setting
A car-rental site's checkout flow
What’s wrong
ARIA structural roles broken: role="list" whose children aren't listitem — tab without tablist — row outside grid/table.
Example
<div class="heading">Shipping Address</div>Why it matters
Screen-reader, braille, and reading-tool users who depend on coded structure rather than visual layout.
How to test
Inspect a custom widget's ARIA parent/child structure in DevTools (e.g., li inside ul, tab inside tablist): mismatched nesting breaks the pattern a screen reader expects.
How to fix
Complete the required ARIA parent/child structure (listitem in list, tab in tablist, row in grid/table).
<h2>Shipping Address</h2>A real heading element exposes the section structure to assistive tech; a styled div doesn't.
Outcome
On a car-rental site's checkout flow, this barrier is gone for screen-reader, braille — they get the same result as anyone else here.
Who is affected
Screen-reader, braille, and reading-tool users who depend on coded structure rather than visual layout.
Learn more
- Understanding Understanding document (opens in a new tab)
Related scenarios
- Text Styled to Look Like a Heading Instead of Coded as One
- Text Columns Faked With Spaces Instead of Real Table Markup
- Table Layout Faked With Spaces Instead of Real Table Code
- Clickable Div Acting as a Link Button With No Real Role
- Structural HTML Tags Used Purely for Visual Styling
- Layout-Only Table Wrongly Coded With Real Header Cells