React Aria

Overview

React Aria (Adobe) provides accessible UI primitives for React. Handles keyboard navigation, screen reader announcements, focus management, and ARIA attributes — you provide styling.

Instructions

Step 1: Accessible Components

import { Button, Label, ListBox, ListBoxItem, Popover, Select, SelectValue } from 'react-aria-components'

export function SelectField({ label, items, onSelectionChange }) {
  return (
    <Select onSelectionChange={onSelectionChange}>
      <Label>{label}</Label>
      <Button><SelectValue /><span aria-hidden="true">▼</span></Button>
      <Popover>
        <ListBox>
          {items.map(item => (
            <ListBoxItem key={item.id} id={item.id}>{item.name}</ListBoxItem>
          ))}
        </ListBox>
      </Popover>
    </Select>
  )
}
// Arrow keys navigate, Enter selects, Escape closes
// Screen reader: announces value, role, option count

Step 2: Focus Management

import { FocusScope } from 'react-aria'

function ModalDialog({ children, onClose }) {
  return (
    <FocusScope contain restoreFocus autoFocus>
      <div role="dialog" aria-modal="true">
        {children}
        <button onClick={onClose}>Close</button>
      </div>
    </FocusScope>
  )
}

Step 3: Custom Hooks

import { useButton } from 'react-aria'
import { useRef } from 'react'

function CustomButton(props) {
  const ref = useRef(null)
  const { buttonProps } = useButton(props, ref)
  return <button {...buttonProps} ref={ref}>{props.children}</button>
}

Guidelines

• React Aria = behavior + accessibility. You control styling (Tailwind, CSS-in-JS).
• react-aria-components: pre-built accessible components with render props.
• Individual hooks (useButton, useTextField) for fully custom designs.
• FocusScope traps focus in modals — required for WCAG 2.1.
• Test with VoiceOver (Mac), NVDA (Windows), keyboard-only.