The first rule of ARIA

The first rule of ARIA use: if you can use a native HTML element or attribute with the semantics and behavior you require already built in, instead of re-purposing an element and adding an ARIA role, state, or property to make it accessible, then do so. The companion saying is "No ARIA is better than bad ARIA": in WebAIM's survey of over one million home pages, pages with ARIA present averaged 41% more detected errors than those without, because ARIA used incorrectly can do more harm than good. When no native element fits — as with a progress bar built on a meaningless <div> — add the missing semantics with role="progressbar", aria-valuemin, aria-valuemax, and aria-valuenow, and keep aria-valuenow updated with JavaScript as the value changes so assistive technologies announce the current state. Scope: Web accessibility. Reviewed October 4, 2026.