Title: aria-hidden elements do not contain focusable elements
Last modified: June 21, 2024

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# aria-hidden elements do not contain focusable elements

 *  Resolved [abrightclearweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/abrightclearweb/)
 * (@abrightclearweb)
 * [1 year, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/aria-hidden-elements-do-not-contain-focusable-elements/)
 * I’m checking my site for accessibility and I’m getting an error that seems to
   relate to Antispam Bee.
 * The issue is: [aria-hidden elements do not contain focusable elements](https://dequeuniversity.com/rules/axe/4.1/aria-hidden-focus),
   which is a failure of WCAG 2.1 AA.
 * The relevant code is:
 * `<textarea id="comment`
 * Can you explain what this code does, and why it needs the aria-hidden value of
   true?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Plugin Contributor [Torsten Landsiedel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zodiac1978/)
 * (@zodiac1978)
 * [1 year, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/aria-hidden-elements-do-not-contain-focusable-elements/#post-17842421)
 * Hi [@abrightclearweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/abrightclearweb/)
 * I’m happy to explain:
 * This code is our “honeypot”. It is hidden for sighted people with the CSS in 
   the style attribute, and hidden to assistive technologies via `aria-hidden="true"`.
   A bot fills out every form markup, including this hidden textarea. If there is
   content submitted in this field, we know it is spam, because no user (sighted
   or not) will recognize it, as it is hidden.
 * This is therefore a false positive, because it is the _intention_ of this code
   to be hidden for everyone.
 * I hope this clears things up!
 * All the best
   Torsten
 *  Thread Starter [abrightclearweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/abrightclearweb/)
 * (@abrightclearweb)
 * [1 year, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/aria-hidden-elements-do-not-contain-focusable-elements/#post-17861279)
 * Hi Torsten,
 * Thanks for explaining.
 * Deque’s notes on this issue say, “Aria-hidden may be used with extreme caution
   to hide visibly rendered content from assistive technologies only if the act 
   of hiding this content is intended to improve the experience for users of assistive
   technologies by removing redundant or extraneous content.”
 * As the hidden field is only for spambots, I think that applies in this case.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘aria-hidden elements do not contain focusable elements’ is closed to 
new replies.

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 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [abrightclearweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/abrightclearweb/)
 * Last activity: [1 year, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/aria-hidden-elements-do-not-contain-focusable-elements/#post-17861279)
 * Status: resolved