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Accordions

The accordion element delivers large amounts of content in a small space through progressive disclosure.

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Accessibility

  • Availability of accordion content to assistive technology requires the use of aria-controls and toggling aria-expanded as regions are expanded and collapsed.
  • Each accordion header must have a unique title that clearly describes the accordion panel content so that assistive technology users have the necessary information to efficiently navigate the content without having to expand every section. The title of each accordion header should include the attribute role="button".
  • Each accordion header button is wrapped in an element with role heading that has a value set for aria-level that is appropriate for the information architecture of the page.
    • If the native host language has an element with an implicit heading and aria-level, such as an HTML heading tag, a native host language element may be used.
    • The button element is the only element inside the heading element. That is, if there are other visually persistent elements, they are not included inside the heading element.
  • If the accordion panel associated with an accordion header is visible, the header button element has aria-expanded set to true. If the panel is not visible, aria-expanded is set to false.
  • The accordion header button element has aria-controls set to the ID of the element containing the accordion panel content.
  • If the accordion panel associated with an accordion header is visible, and if the accordion does not permit the panel to be collapsed, the header button element has aria-disabled set to true.
  • “Enter” or “Space” key should expand and collapse headers. “Tab” key moves focus to the next focusable element; all focusable elements in the accordion should be included in the page tab sequence. “Shift” + “Tab” moves focus to the previous focusable element.
  • Avoid keyboard traps when adding components to the accordion panel. For example, the user expands an accordion, but is unable to tab to the next focusable element.
  • Although the accordion element passes accessibility testing, content authors need to ensure the content that is added to the accordion is accessible. For example, if you add an image to the accordion header or panel you need to include alternative text to pass accessibility testing.
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