[Markup and meta data] HTML markup isn't valid. (09.01.1)

General Information

VFS team name

Benefits Disability Experience Team

VFS product name

Disability Comp Application (21-526 EZ), Add Self Assessment Part A form information to BDD workflow

VFS feature name

Add Self Assessment Part A form information to BDD workflow

Point of Contact/Reviewers

Brian DeConinck - @briandeconinck - Accessibility

*For more information on how to interpret this ticket, please refer to the Anatomy of a Staging Review issue ticket guidance on Platform Website.

Platform Issue

HTML markup isn't valid.

Issue Details

On /start/, the "File a BDD disability claim online" link has an aria-describedby pointing to the "Learn more about the BDD program" link. That's not exactly how aria-describedby is intended to be used---in general, it's not supposed to reference IDs of interactive elements. What's happening is the first link is being read by screen readers with the combined text of the two links together, "File a BDD disability claim online learn more about the BDD program," then the next tab stop is the second link on its own. Definitely confusing if you don't have the visual cues of the screen to understand that they're separate links.

Link, screenshot or steps to recreate

Current code:

<a href="/disability/file-disability-claim-form-21-526ez/introduction" class="vads-c-action-link--green" aria-describedby="learn_about_bdd">File a BDD disability claim online</a>

<p id="learn_about_bdd" class="vads-u-margin-bottom--0">
    <a href="/disability/how-to-file-claim/when-to-file/pre-discharge-claim/">Learn more about the BDD program</a>
</p>

VA.gov Experience Standard

Category Number 09, Issue Number 01

Other References

WCAG SC 1.3.1_A

Platform Recommendation

Remove the aria-describedby. I think I understand what was originally intended here but it's not needed.

VFS Guidance

Close the ticket when the issue has been resolved or validated by your Product Owner
If your team has additional questions or needs Platform help validating the issue, please comment on the ticket
Some feedback provided may be out of scope for your iteration of the product, however, Platform's OCTO leadership has stated that all identified issues need to be documented and it is still your responsibility to resolve the issue.
If you do not believe that this Staging Review issue ticket is the responsibility of your team, comment below providing an explanation and who you believe is responsible. Please tag the Point of Contact/Reviewers. Governance team will research and will follow up.

department-of-veterans-affairs / va.gov-team