Role Attribute 1.0
An attribute to support the role classification of elements
W3C Recommendation 28 March 2013
- This version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-role-attribute-20130328/
- Latest published version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/role-attribute/
- Latest editor's draft:
- http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/role-attribute/
- Previous version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/PR-role-attribute-20121213/
- Editor:
- Shane McCarron, Applied Testing and Technology, Inc., shane@aptest.com
- Authors:
- Ben Adida, Creative Commons
- Mark Birbeck, webBackplane
- Steven Pemberton, CWI/W3C®
- T. V. Raman, Google, Inc.
- Richard Schwerdtfeger, IBM Corporation
Please refer to the errata for this document, which may include some normative corrections.
See also translations.
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Non-normative
translations may also be available.
Copyright ©
2006-2013
W3C®
(MIT,
ERCIM,
Keio, Beihang), All Rights Reserved.
W3C liability,
trademark and
document use rules apply.
Abstract
The Role Attribute defined in this specification allows the author to annotate markup languages with machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an element. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side processing, and complex data description. This attribute can be integrated into any markup language. In particular, schema
implementations are provided to facilitate with languages
based upon XHTML Modularization [XHTML-MODULARIZATION11-2e].
The role attribute is necessary to support Accessible
Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) [WAI-ARIA]
to define roles in XML-based languages, when the languages do not define
their own role attribute. Although this is the reason the Role Attribute
is published by the Protocols and Formats Working Group, the attribute
has more general use cases as well.
Status of This Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other
documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision
of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports
index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This is the Role Attribute W3C Recommendation by the Protocols & Formats Working Group of the Web Accessibility Initiative. This document has been reviewed by W3C Members, by software developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and is endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
As a finalized document, this version of the Role Attribute is not likely to undergo further changes. The Protocols and Formats Working Group expects that any further enhancements to the Role Attribute would take place in a future version of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), instead of in a future version of this specification. The Working Group does not plan to make formal responses to comments on the Role Attribute Recommendation, but will consider input for errata or other future work. Start with the instructions for commenting page to submit comments (preferred), or send email to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org (comment archive). A history of changes to Role Attribute
1.0 is available.
This document was produced by a group operating under the
5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy.
W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures
made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for
disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains
Essential Claim(s) must disclose the
information in accordance with section
6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
3. The Role Attribute
This specification defines the role attribute. The role attribute takes as its value one or more whitespace separated TERMorCURIEorAbsIRIs, which is defined in [RDFA-CORE]. Each component of the value maps to an IRI that corresponds to a vocabulary term that SHOULD be defined using RDF.
Note
The datatype used for @role permits the use of a TERM, a CURIE (as defined in [RDFA-CORE]), or a full IRI. A TERM is an item from a vocabulary. The default vocabulary for use with @role is defined in [XHTML-VOCAB]. A host language MAY define a different default vocabulary.
Note
The specific vocabulary terms from the default vocabulary are not included in this document. They are defined in [XHTML-VOCAB] to ease maintenance. The terms are drawn from [WAI-ARIA] and from the original work on this document by the XHTML2 Working Group.
The attribute describes the role(s) the current element plays in the context of the document. This can be used, for example, by applications and assistive technologies to determine the purpose of an element. This could allow a user to make informed decisions on which actions may be taken on an element and activate the selected action in a device independent way. It could also be used as a mechanism for annotating portions of a document in a domain specific way (e.g., a legal term taxonomy). Although the role attribute may be used to add semantics to an element, authors SHOULD use elements with inherent semantics, such as p, rather than layering semantics on semantically neutral elements, such as div role="paragraph".
The following is an example of a good, appropriate use of the role attribute:
Example
2
<div role="main">
<h1>This is the main content of the page</h1>
<p>Here is some content that is the primary purpose of this web page.</p>
</div>
3.1 Extending the collection of roles
It is possible to define additional role values. Vocabulary authors MUST define such additional role values in their own vocabulary. The URI associated with that vocabulary SHOULD resolve to a resource that allows for the machine and human discovery of the definition of the roles in the vocabulary.
Note
A good example of such a resource is the default vocabulary document at [XHTML-VOCAB]. This document uses a format compatible with the requirements of [RDFA-CORE] section 9 for machine-discoverable RDFa Initial Contexts.
4. Using Role in conjunction with RDFa
If a Host Language contains the @role attribute, then an RDFa processor
processing a document written in that Host Language according to the
rules of that Host Language MAY generate additional triples for role attributes. If these
additional triples are being generated, then they MUST be generated as follows:
- If @id is present, it is used to supply the subject by concatenating the document's
'base', a fragment separator '#', and the value of @id.
Otherwise the subject is a unique newly created
bnode.
- The predicate is the term
role in the vocabulary
defined at http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab.
- Each value of @role is an object, forming an
RDF triple with the subject and predicate defined above. An RDFa Processor MUST behave as if there is an in-scope vocabulary of
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab# for the value(s) of the @role attribute.
Note
Remember that @role values are defined using the
datatype TERMorCURIEorAbsIRIs. An RDFa Processor will intepret
these values using the rules for that that datatype as defined in [RDFA-CORE].
A. XHTML Role Attribute Module
A.1 DTD Implementation
The DTD implementation of XHTML Role Attribute Module conforms to the requirements defined
in [XHTML-MODULARIZATION11-2e]. Consequently, it provides a Qualified
Names declaration module.
A.1.1 Qualified Names Module
Note that this module defines the parameter entity
%xhtml-role-attrs.qname;. This entity is intended to be used in
the attribute lists of elements in any host language that permits the use of
the role attribute on elements in its own namespace.
If a host language does not permit role in its namespace, then the host
language driver should set a parameter entity %XHTML-ROLE.prefixed;
to INCLUDE and a parameter entity %XHTML-ROLE.prefix;
to a value that is the prefix for the XHTML Role Attribute Module attribute.
<!-- ....................................................................... -->
<!-- XHTML Role Qname Module ............................................ -->
<!-- file: xhtml-role-qname-1.mod
This is XHTML Role - the Role Attribute Module for XHTML.
Copyright 2006 W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved.
This DTD module is identified by the PUBLIC and SYSTEM identifiers:
PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML Role Attribute Qnames 1.0//EN"
SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-role-qname-1.mod"
Revisions:
(none)
....................................................................... -->
<!-- XHTML Role Attribute Qname (Qualified Name) Module
This module is contained in two parts, labeled Section 'A' and 'B':
Section A declares parameter entities to support namespace-
qualified names, namespace declarations, and name prefixing
for XHTML Role and extensions.
Section B declares parameter entities used to provide
namespace-qualified names for the XHTML role attribute:
%role.qname; the xmlns-qualified name for @role
...
XHTML Role extensions would create a module similar to this one.
-->
<!-- Section A: XHTML Role Attribute XML Namespace Framework ::::::::::::::: -->
<!-- 1. Declare a %XHTML-ROLE.prefixed; conditional section keyword, used
to activate namespace prefixing. The default value should
inherit '%NS.prefixed;' from the DTD driver, so that unless
overridden, the default behavior follows the overall DTD
prefixing scheme.
-->
<!ENTITY % NS.prefixed "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.prefixed "%NS.prefixed;" >
<!-- 2. Declare a parameter entity (eg., %XHTML-ROLE.xmlns;) containing
the URI reference used to identify the XHTML Role Attribute namespace
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.xmlns "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<!-- 3. Declare parameter entities (eg., %XML.prefix;) containing
the default namespace prefix string(s) to use when prefixing
is enabled. This may be overridden in the DTD driver or the
internal subset of an document instance. If no default prefix
is desired, this may be declared as an empty string.
NOTE: As specified in [XMLNAMES], the namespace prefix serves
as a proxy for the URI reference, and is not in itself significant.
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.prefix "" >
<!-- 4. Declare parameter entities (eg., %XHTML-ROLE.pfx;) containing the
colonized prefix(es) (eg., '%XHTML-ROLE.prefix;:') used when
prefixing is active, an empty string when it is not.
-->
<![%XHTML-ROLE.prefixed;[
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.pfx "%XHTML-ROLE.prefix;:" >
]]>
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.pfx "" >
<!-- declare qualified name extensions here ............ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-role-qname-extra.mod "" >
%xhtml-role-qname-extra.mod;
<!-- 5. The parameter entity %XHTML-ROLE.xmlns.extra.attrib; may be
redeclared to contain any non-XHTML Role Attribute namespace
declaration attributes for namespaces embedded in XML. The default
is an empty string. XLink should be included here if used
in the DTD.
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML-ROLE.xmlns.extra.attrib "" >
<!-- Section B: XML Qualified Names ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<!-- 6. This section declares parameter entities used to provide
namespace-qualified names for the XHTML role attribute.
-->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-role.role.qname "%XHTML-ROLE.pfx;role" >
<!-- The following defines a PE for use in the attribute sets of elements in
other namespaces that want to incorporate the XHTML role attribute. Note
that in this case the XHTML-ROLE.pfx should be defined. -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-role.attrs.qname
"%XHTML-ROLE.pfx;role CDATA #IMPLIED"
>
<!-- end of xhtml-role-qname-1.mod -->
A.2 Schema Implementation
The schema implementation of XHTML Role Attribute Module conforms to the requirements defined
in [XHTML-MODULARIZATION11-2e]. It is included here as an
example implementation.
A.2.1 Attributes Module
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
elementFormDefault="qualified"
xmlns:xh11d="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/datatypes/"
>
<xs:import namespace="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/datatypes/"
schemaLocation="xhtml-datatypes-1.xsd" />
<xs:annotation>
<xs:documentation>
This is the XML Schema attribute module for XHTML Role
$Id: Overview.html,v 1.8 2017/10/02 10:47:16 denis Exp $
</xs:documentation>
<xs:documentation source="xhtml-copyright-1.xsd"/>
<xs:documentation source="http://www.w3.org/TR/role-attribute#A_role"/>
</xs:annotation>
<xs:attribute name="role" type="xh11d:TERMorURIorCURIEs"/>
</xs:schema>
B. Acknowledgements
The following people contributed to the development of this document.
B.1 Participants in the PFWG at the time of publication
- David Bolter (Mozilla)
- Sally Cain (Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB))
- Alex Qiang Chen (University of Manchester)
- Charles Chen (Google, Inc.)
- Michael Cooper (W3C/MIT)
- James Craig (Apple, Inc.)
- Steve Faulkner (Invited Expert, The Paciello Group)
- Geoff Freed (Invited Expert, NCAM)
- Kentarou Fukuda (IBM)
- Georgios Grigoriadis (SAP AG)
- Jon Gunderson (Invited Expert, UIUC)
- Markus Gylling (DAISY Consortium)
- Sean Hayes (Microsoft Corporation)
- Kenny Johar (Microsoft Corporation)
- Shilpi Kapoor (BarrierBreak Technologies)
- Matthew King (IBM Corporation)
- Diego La Monica (International Webmasters Association / HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG))
- Rajesh Lal (Nokia Corporation)
- Gez Lemon (International Webmasters Association / HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG))
- Anders Markussen (Opera Software)
- Shane McCarron (Invited Expert, ApTest)
- Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software)
- Mary Jo Mueller (IBM Corporation)
- James Nurthen (Oracle Corporation)
- Joshue O Connor (Invited Expert, NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology)
- Sarah Pulis (Media Access Australia)
- T.V. Raman (Google, Inc.)
- Janina Sajka (Invited Expert, The Linux Foundation)
- Joseph Scheuhammer (Invited Expert, Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University)
- Stefan Schnabel (SAP AG)
- Richard Schwerdtfeger (IBM Corporation)
- Lisa Seeman (Invited Expert)
- Cynthia Shelly (Microsoft Corporation)
- Andi Snow-Weaver (IBM Corporation)
- Gregg Vanderheiden (Invited Expert, Trace Research and Development Center)
- Léonie Watson (Nomensa)
- Gottfried Zimmermann (Invited Expert, Access Technologies Group)
B.2 Other previously active PFWG participants and contributors
Jim Allan (TSB), Simon Bates, Chris Blouch (AOL), Judy Brewer (W3C/MIT), Ben Caldwell (Trace), Charles Chen (Google, Inc.), Christian Cohrs, Dimitar Denev (Frauenhofer Gesellschaft), Donald Evans (AOL), Kentarou Fukuda (IBM Corporation), Becky Gibson (IBM), Alfred S. Gilman, Andres Gonzalez (Adobe Systems Inc.), Georgios Grigoriadis (SAP AG), Jeff Grimes (Oracle), Barbara Hartel, John Hrvatin (Microsoft Corporation), Masahiko Kaneko (Microsoft Corporation), Earl Johnson (Sun), Jael Kurz, Diego La Monica (International Webmasters Association / HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG)), Aaron Leventhal (IBM Corporation), Alex Li (SAP), Thomas Logan (HiSoftware), William Loughborough, Linda Mao (Microsoft), Anders Markussen (Opera Software), Matthew May (Adobe Systems Inc.), Artur Ortega (Yahoo!, Inc.), Lisa Pappas (Society for Technical Communication (STC)), Dave Pawson (RNIB), Stephen Pemberton (CWI), David Poehlman, Simon Pieters (Opera Software), T.V. Raman (Google, Inc.), Gregory Rosmaita, Tony Ross (Microsoft Corporation), Martin Schaus (SAP AG), Marc Silbey (Microsoft Corporation), Henri Sivonen (Mozilla), Henny Swan (Opera Software), Vitaly Sourikov, Mike Squillace (IBM), Ryan Williams (Oracle), Tom Wlodkowski.
B.3 Enabling funders
This publication has been funded in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) under contract number ED-OSE-10-C-0067. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.