ARIA property
aria-keyshortcuts
Lists the keyboard shortcuts that activate this control, so they can be announced and checked for clashes.
It publishes a shortcut so assistive technology can announce it. It does not create one. Browsers are required not to change any keyboard behaviour in response to this attribute, so the key handling stays entirely yours.
Which roles may carry aria-keyshortcuts
- Value
- string
- Filed as
- A property, which is how ARIA files it and not a rule about how often it changes.
- Roles that may carry it
- Any role. This one is global, which is why no individual role lists it.
Global means no role has to grant permission for it. There is one more place to check, because ARIA in HTML sets rules per element as well as per role, and it allows no aria-* attributes at all on a datalist or on the html element. Past that, the way a global attribute goes wrong is rarely where it sits. It is whether it is still true, which is the next section.
Every role above comes from the specification's own list for this attribute, checked name for name. The normative definition stays with the W3C, in the aria-keyshortcuts section of the ARIA specification.
Keeping aria-keyshortcuts true
Publishing a shortcut and handling it are two separate pieces of code, which is exactly why they drift apart. The attribute says one combination, the handler listens for another, and nothing anywhere complains. Whoever changes a shortcut has to change both. There is one behaviour rule attached, and it is a requirement. A shortcut on a disabled element has to be unavailable, so disabling a control means disabling its shortcut too. The key names come from the UI Events key values rather than from whatever your team calls them, so the spelling is worth checking once and then copying.
How aria-keyshortcuts gets checked
There are test rules that check an ARIA attribute is one that exists, is allowed on the role underneath it, and carries a value of the right type. What they map to is ARIA's own author requirements rather than any WCAG criterion, so a misplaced attribute breaks ARIA without being a WCAG failure by itself. It becomes one under 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value the moment the missing or wrong value means the control's state cannot be worked out programmatically, which is what usually happens next.
Nothing automated catches the failure this page is about. A stale value is a valid value, on a permitted role, with the right type. It is only wrong about the world.
Attributes you will meet alongside aria-keyshortcuts
- aria-atomic Whether an update should be read whole, or only the part that changed.
- aria-busy Says a region is still being updated, so wait before announcing it.
- aria-controls Points at what this control operates. A combobox has to say what it opens.
- aria-current Marks the one item in a set that represents the here and now, such as the current page in a nav.
- aria-describedby Points at further description, read after the name. Hints and error text usually go here.
- aria-details Points at richer explanation elsewhere in the page, which people can navigate to rather than have read out.
- aria-flowto Overrides reading order by pointing at what should be read next. Rarely the right answer.
- aria-hidden Removes an element from the accessibility tree while leaving it on screen.
Every ARIA state and property · Every ARIA role · ARIA explained