Publications | FCA

News | FCA

Consumer credit firms | FCA

Research | FCA

Firms | FCA

FCA blogs | FCA

Markets | FCA

Data | FCA

Claims management companies | FCA

Financial Conduct Authority | FCA

When using accessible descriptions (`aria-describedby`), ensure that the 
descriptions exist.

## Explanation

ARIA descriptions are commonly used to add supplementary information to 
elements in a page, especially form controls. For example:

```html
<input type="email" aria-describedby="email-help">
<p id="email-helpp">Enter your work email address</p>
```

In this example, the `aria-describedby` for the field points to an ID of `email-help`,
which doesn't exist. The paragraph it refers to instead has an ID of `email-helpp`, presumably 
a typo.

## Why this matters

It isn't usually clear when an accessible description is broken, even during user testing.

This check helps to identify where an element clearly intended to have a description, but
that description is missing.

When a description is broken, key information about that element may be omitted from 
assistive technologies.

missing-aria-described-by

June 2025

May 2025

Financial Conduct Authority

	Title / URL	Issues
	Publications \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/publications	2
	News \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/news	2
	Consumer credit firms \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/consumer-credit	2
	Research \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/research	2
	Firms \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms	2
	FCA blogs \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/news/fca-blogs	2
	Markets \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/markets	2
	Data \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/data	2
	Claims management companies \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/claims-management	2
	Financial Conduct Authority \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/	1

Fix missing ARIA description IDs

Financial Conduct Authority

Where this issue has occurred