ARIA: mark role

The mark role denotes content which is marked or highlighted for reference or notation purposes, due to the content's relevance in the enclosing context.

Description

The mark role semantically denotes HTML elements containing text that is marked/highlighted for reference purposes. This is semantically equivalent to the HTML <mark> element. If possible, you should use this element instead.

Example uses for mark are the exact same as the <mark> element. They include highlighting text in a quotation which is of special interest but is not marked in the original source material, comparable to using a highlighter pen to mark passages of a print article and indicating portions of the content that are relevant to the user's current activity, such as highlighting text matches found by a search feature.

Don't use mark for purely decorative styling such as syntax highlighting.

The mark element should not be given an accessible name; both aria-label and aria-labelledby attributes are prohibited on mark.

Examples

In the following example we have a document section that has been commented. The commented section is marked up using <span role="mark">.

<p>The last half of the song is a slow-rising crescendo that peaks at the
<span role="mark" aria-details="thread-1">end of the guitar solo</span>, before fading away sharply.</p>

<div role="comment" id="thread-1" data-author="chris">
  <h3>Chris said</h3>
  <p class="comment-text">I really think this moment could use more cowbell.</p>
  <p><time datetime="2022-03-30T19:29">March 30 2022, 19:29</time></p>
</div>

The related comment is marked up using an HTML structure wrapped with a <div> containing role="comment".

To associate the comment with the text being commented, we need to wrap the commented text with an element containing the aria-details attribute, the value of which should be the ID of the comment.

Best practices

Prefer HTML

Using the <mark> element will automatically communicate a node has a role of mark. If at all possible, prefer using it instead.

Specifications

Will be part of WAI-ARIA 1.3, which is still being drafted.

See also