What is ARIA?

Accessible Rich Internet Applications attributes exist because interactive components often have no native equivalent in standard markup — a custom dropdown, a tabbed panel, a live-updating region. ARIA supplies roles, states and properties so a screen reader can announce what the component is and what it is doing. The prevailing guidance is that native markup is preferable wherever it exists, because ARIA describes behaviour without providing it, and incorrect ARIA is worse than none: an element announced as a button that does not behave like one misleads rather than assists. In a governed content estate the relevance is narrower but real, since interactive elements embedded in published content carry the same obligations as the surrounding text. Because Centralpoint holds accessibility state as a record property rather than as an assumption, components that rely on ARIA can be identified and reviewed rather than presumed correct.