What s the difference between HTML hidden and aria-hidden attributes

Question

I have been seeing the aria attribute all over while working with Angular Material  Can someone explain to me  what the aria prefix means  but most importantly what I m trying to understand is the difference between aria-hidden and hidden attribute

User · Answer

setting aria-hidden to false and toggling it on element.show() worked for me.

e.g

<span aria-hidden="true">aria text</span>

$(span).attr('aria-hidden', 'false');
$(span).show();

and when hiding back

$(span).attr('aria-hidden', 'true');
$(span).hide();

User · Answer

Semantic Difference  According to HTML 5 2      When specified on an element   the hidden attribute  indicates that the element is not yet  or is no longer  directly relevant to the page   s current state  or that it is being used to declare content to be reused by other parts of the page as opposed to being directly accessed by the user    Examples include a tab list where some panels are not exposed  or a log-in screen that goes away after a user logs in  I like to call these things    temporally relevant    i e  they are relevant based on timing   On the other hand  ARIA 1 1 says       The aria-hidden state  indicates whether an element is exposed to the accessibility API    In other words  elements with aria-hidden  true  are removed from the accessibility tree  which most assistive technology honors  and elements with aria-hidden  false  will definitely be exposed to the tree  Elements without the aria-hidden attribute are in the  undefined  default   state  which means user agents should expose it to the tree based on its rendering  E g  a user agent may decide to remove it if its text color matches its background color   Now let   s compare semantics  It   s appropriate to use hidden  but not aria-hidden  for an element that is not yet    temporally relevant     but that might become relevant in the future  in which case you would use dynamic scripts to remove the hidden attribute   Conversely  it   s appropriate to use aria-hidden  but not hidden  on an element that is always relevant  but with which you don   t want to clutter the accessibility API  such elements might include    visual flair     like icons and or imagery that are not essential for the user to consume   Effective Difference  The semantics have predictable effects in browsers user agents  The reason I make a distinction is that user agent behavior is recommended  but not required by the specifications   The hidden attribute should hide an element from all presentations  including printers and screen readers  assuming these devices honor the HTML specs   If you want to remove an element from the accessibility tree as well as visual media  hidden would do the trick  However  do not use hidden just because you want this effect  Ask yourself if hidden is semantically correct first  see above   If hidden is not semantically correct  but you still want to visually hide the element  you can use other techniques such as CSS   Elements with aria-hidden  true  are not exposed to the accessibility tree  so for example  screen readers won   t announce them  This technique should be used carefully  as it will provide different experiences to different users  accessible user agents won   t announce render them  but they are still rendered on visual agents  This can be a good thing when done correctly  but it has the potential to be abused   Syntactic Difference  Lastly  there is a difference in syntax between the two attributes    hidden is a boolean attribute  meaning if the attribute is present it is true   regardless of whatever value it might have   and if the attribute is absent it is false  For the true case  the best practice is to either use no value at all   lt div hidden gt     lt  div gt    or the empty string value   lt div hidden    gt     lt  div gt    I would not recommend hidden  true  because someone reading updating your code might infer that hidden  false  would have the opposite effect  which is simply incorrect   aria-hidden  by contrast  is an enumerated attribute  allowing one of a finite list of values  If the aria-hidden attribute is present  its value must be either  true  or  false   If you want the  undefined  default   state  remove the attribute altogether     Further reading  https   github com chharvey chharvey github io wiki Hidden-Content

User · Answer

ARIA  Accessible Rich Internet Applications  defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities   The hidden attribute is new in HTML5 and tells browsers not to display the element  The aria-hidden property tells screen-readers if they should ignore the element  Have a look at the w3 docs for more details   https   www w3 org WAI PF aria states and properties aria-hidden  Using these standards can make it easier for disabled people to use the web

User · Answer

A hidden attribute is a boolean attribute  True False   When this attribute is used on an element  it removes all relevance to that element  When a user views the html page  elements with the hidden attribute should not be visible   Example        lt p hidden gt You can t see this lt  p gt    Aria-hidden attributes indicate that the element and ALL of its descendants are still visible in the browser  but will be invisible to accessibility tools  such as screen readers   Example        lt p aria-hidden  true  gt You can t see this lt  p gt    Take a look at this  It should answer all your questions   Note  ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications  Sources  Paciello Group

[html] What's the difference between HTML 'hidden' and 'aria-hidden' attributes?

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