Reading the Accessibility Tree to Debug ARIA
Verify roles and states in the browser inspector.
What the Accessibility Tree Is
The browser builds an accessibility tree from your DOM. It is the stripped-down version that screen readers actually read.
Why Debug It Directly
Looking at the tree shows the truth: the real name, role, and state of an element, not what you hoped your markup produced.
All lessons in this course
- The First Rule: No ARIA Beats Bad ARIA
- Roles Define What a Thing Is
- States and Properties: expanded, checked, disabled
- Reading the Accessibility Tree to Debug ARIA