main element role semantics. (Deprecated)

Rule ID Role 1
Definition Overriding a main element's default role of main landmark must only be done in special cases. NOTE: Deprecated in favor of HTML 3 a more general rule on role restrictions based on ARIA in HTML specification.
Purpose
  • The main element has role restrictions as part of its definition in the W3C HTML5 Specification.
  • The main element semantics are to identify the primary content on the page.
  • If the main element does not contain the primary content of the web page the main landmark semantics the of the element must be changed.
Required No for HTML5 and ARIA Techniques ruleset mapping
WCAG Success Criteria

1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A, Primary Success Criterion)

Other Related Success Criterion:

Rule Category Styling/Content
Scope Element
Target Resources main elements
  • main
Techniques
  • HTML5 enabled browsers and modern assistive technologies identify the main element as a main landmark without role="main" being specified, but role="main" is allowed for backward compatibility.
  • If the main element does not contain the primary content of the web page due to author error use role="presentation" to override the main landmark semantics or change element to an element that correctly identifies the semantics of the content.
  • If you need to support Microsoft Internet Explorer(IE) 8, use div[role="main"] instead of the main element to indicate primary content, since IE 8 does not support accessibility features of HTML5 elements.
Informational Links