WAI-ARIA

A W3C technical specification that defines a set of HTML attributes (roles, states, and properties) to make dynamic web content and custom user interface widgets accessible to people using assistive technologies such as screen readers. ARIA allows developers to communicate the purpose, state, and behavior of interactive elements that are not natively accessible through standard HTML — for example, marking a div as a tab panel, indicating that a checkbox is checked, or defining a region as a live area that updates dynamically. While ARIA is powerful, its implementation complexity — requiring coordination across HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and multiple development roles — has been identified as a significant barrier to widespread adoption.