Writing & StyleStyle guide

Writing Accessible Meter Value Text

Writing Accessible Meter Value Text records the APG’s explicit user-friendly-value rule and keeps it separate from control labeling or progress-indicator guidance.

Quick answer

When a meter’s numeric value is not self-explanatory, provide user-friendly value text that adds the context needed to understand the reading.

Key details

Core IssueW3C APG says that when a meter’s numeric value would not be user-friendly if presented by itself, aria-valuetext can provide a string that makes the value understandable.
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Important caveats

Scope Boundary

This page covers wording of a meter’s user-friendly value text; minimum/maximum values, role choice, visual rendering, and update mechanics remain implementation concerns.

Further guidance

Content

Write value text that translates the raw measurement into user-meaningful information, adding context such as units or practical meaning when the number alone would be unclear.

Purpose

User-friendly value text helps assistive-technology users understand what the meter reading means instead of hearing an ambiguous number or percentage.

Sources and evidence

Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.

  1. Meter Pattern — WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (opens in a new tab)World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) · W3C APG guidance for meter accessible naming and user-friendly meter value text when a numeric value alone is insufficient.

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