Why a Div Styled as a Button Fails the Robust Principle
A "Submit" control is built as a <div> with an onclick handler and CSS
that makes it look pixel-identical to a real button. It happens to work
in today's screen reader, but a different assistive-tech tool, or next
year's release of the same one, might interpret it inconsistently or not
at all.
Which WCAG POUR principle is this a violation of?
The correct answer is "Robust."
Robust requires content to be interpreted reliably across a wide range
of user agents, including assistive technologies, both now and as they
evolve — SC 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value) is satisfied by valid, semantic
markup like a real <button>, which every assistive technology
interprets the same way. A styled <div> with a click handler is a coin
flip on each tool and each future version, which is the exact failure
mode Robust describes.
Perceivable and Understandable aren't violated by this alone — the control can still be seen and its function inferred visually. Operable is a related but separate concern (keyboard reachability); the question here is about consistent interpretation, which is specifically Robust.
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