Prevent screen reader from reading aria-label

Question

I have an element with a landmark role (complementary) which requires an aria-label/aria-labelledBy. This element has several focusable child elements with text in them that needs to be read by a screen reader.

Is there a way to prevent screen readers from reading the aria-label of the parent element, while not preventing the children from being read?

EDIT

for this code:

<div id="parent-element" role="complementary" aria-label="some text" tabindex="0">
    <div id="child-element1" tabindex="0">I'm the first child</div>
    <div id="child-element2" tabindex="0">I'm the second child</div>
</div>

Screen readers will read "some text I'm the first child I'm the second child" when focused to the parent-element.

I'm using IBM's "Dynamic Assessment Plugin" for chrome to evaluate my site.

This is the violation that I'm getting: comlementary role must have aria label

More explanation about the violation - https://aat.mybluemix.net/token/ace67f8e-8cad-40b4-be4b-eb02197944bc/6c6a166a-542d-4e1a-8a10-40a4c69e1d1d/doc/w3/help/en-US/idhi_accessibility_check_g1174.html

I don't want it to read the "some text", but I have to use aria-label if I want the site to pass the accessibility evaluation tool.

Don't include it? This does not make sense without either seeing code or having an explanation of what you are trying to achieve. What is the element (regardless of role) and what is requiring the attribute? — aardrian

Adam Adam · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-09T06:02:40

An element with the complementary role does not require an aria-label/aria-labelledby.

As long as you keep this attribute, it's quite expected that your screenreader would ignore the content and read that attribute.

EDIT: No official specs indicates the obligation of having an aria-label, but when you have multiple complementary landmarks you should have a unique label according to the W3C. Note that the "should" is very important, as this is not a "must" (and quite useless in practice imho)

ARIA Example: Multiple Complementary Landmarks When there is more than one complementary landmark on a page, each should have a unique label.

A tool is just a tool and that assessment tools are very imperfect.

Prevent screen reader from reading aria-label

1 Answers