li with ancestor role=menu or menubar has invalid role Web Standard

Description

An li element that is a descendant of a role=menu element or role=menubar element must not have any role value other than group, menuitem, menuitemcheckbox, menuitemradio, or separator.

Help

Without a role attribute the implicit role is listitem, which is not allowed in an ARIA menu, so an explicit role attribute is needed to voice the control correctly in a screen reader.

Applicable standards

• ARIA
• WCAG 2.0 (Success Criteria: 4.1.2 level A)
• WCAG 2.1 (Success Criteria: 4.1.2 level A)
• WCAG 2.2 (Success Criteria: 4.1.2 level A)
• Section 508 (2017) (Success Criteria: 4.1.2 level A)
• Section 508 (2017) (Success Criteria: 4.1.2 level A)
• HTML5

Note: Section 508 Refresh (2017) checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.0 level A and level AA checkpoints. EN 301 549 checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.1 level A and level AA checkpoints.

Change history

• 6.59 Dec 2025 Added to W3 validator for ARIA 1.3.

This page describes a web site issue detected in HTML documents by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.

Rule ID: W3cHtml5AssertNestedMenuLi