How do you make an autocomplete search bar accessible?
Add role='combobox' and aria-expanded on the container. role='textbox', aria-autocomplete='list', aria-controls, and aria-activedescendant on the input. role='option' and aria-selected on each suggestion. Update aria-expanded and aria-activedescendant via JavaScript.
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role='combobox', aria-expanded (true/false), aria-autocomplete='list', aria-controls (suggestions list ID), aria-activedescendant (highlighted suggestion ID), role='listbox' on the list, role='option' and aria-selected on each item.
It points to the ID of the currently highlighted suggestion. This tells screen readers which suggestion is active, even though the focus is still on the input. Update it via JavaScript when the highlight changes.
It tells screen readers how the autocomplete works. aria-autocomplete='list' means the input offers a list of suggestions. Other values: 'inline' (inline completion), 'both' (list and inline), 'none' (no autocomplete).
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