Creating Accessible Custom Components with React Aria: A Practical Example with Forms

As web developers, it is crucial to prioritize accessibility in our applications. In this blog post we will dive into how we can create custom components with react-aria hooks to make accessible components. React-aria separates the behavior and accessibility implementation for common UI components into React Hooks. This makes it easy to get the behavior, accessibility and internationalization for free. Using react-aria allows you to build components more quickly and ensures that they will work well across mouse, touch, and keyboard interactions as well as with screen readers, and other assistive technology.

Let's Get Started!

React Aria leverages the power of React hooks to seamlessly integrate accessibility into components. To incorporate accessibility into a component, there are two main steps. Firstly, you need to obtain a reference to the component you want to enhance with accessibility features. For example, if you have a button component, you can use the useButton hook from React Aria to access its accessibility-related functionalities. Secondly, you can spread the props provided by the useButton hook into the component to ensure accessibility support. This approach ensures that the component is properly enhanced and adheres to accessibility standards.

Here is the example component from my codesandbox:

export default function ThemedButton(props: Props) {
  const ref = useRef();
  const { buttonProps } = useButton(props, ref);
  return (
    <Button
      ref={ref}
      {...buttonProps}
      text="#ffffff"
      color={colors.primary}
      style={props.style ? props.style : null}
    >
      {props.text}
    </Button>
  );
}

Now that we have our custom button component set up, we can utilize it to leverage the accessibility features provided by React Aria. By using this component, we can effortlessly incorporate essential accessibility functionality without the need for manual implementation. Let's take a look at an example:

// Usage example:
function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <Button onClick={() => console.log('Button clicked!')}>
        Click Me
      </Button>
    </div>
  );
}

In conclusion, this blog post provided a concise demonstration of how React Aria hooks can be utilized to enhance the accessibility of a custom button component. However, there are many more exciting possibilities to explore with React Aria for implementing accessibility in various components and scenarios. I encourage you to visit my CodeSandbox example where you can delve deeper into the world of accessibility-driven development. Feel free to experiment, modify the code, and adapt it to suit your specific requirements. Let's embark on this journey together, continuously striving to build inclusive and accessible web applications. Together, we can create a more inclusive digital experience for all users.