Locating Elements by Role

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Locating Elements by Role

When writing automated tests (in tools like Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium with ARIA support), one powerful way to interact with elements is by using their role.

Roles come from the ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) specification. They describe the purpose of an element (e.g., button, link, textbox, checkbox, heading).

🔹 Why Use Role-Based Locators?

✅ Accessibility-friendly – aligns with accessibility standards (screen readers also rely on roles).

✅ Stable selectors – less likely to break compared to fragile CSS or XPath.

✅ Cross-platform consistency – works the same way across browsers and frameworks.

✅ Human-readable – easy for testers to understand.

🔹 Examples of Common Roles

Element (HTML) Role Assigned Example Use

<button> button Login button

<a href="..."> link Navigation links

<input type="text"> textbox Username field

<input type="checkbox"> checkbox Accept terms

<h1> … <h6> heading Page titles

<select> combobox Dropdown menus

🔹 Example in Playwright

// Click a button by role

await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Login' }).click();

// Fill a textbox by role

await page.getByRole('textbox', { name: 'Username' }).fill('john_doe');

// Check a checkbox by role

await page.getByRole('checkbox', { name: 'Accept Terms' }).check();

🔹 Example in Cypress (Testing Library)

// Click button

cy.findByRole('button', { name: /submit/i }).click();

// Type into textbox

cy.findByRole('textbox', { name: /email/i }).type('test@example.com');

// Select checkbox

cy.findByRole('checkbox', { name: /remember me/i }).check();

🔹 When to Use Role Locators

Buttons, links, and form fields

Headings and navigation menus

Interactive widgets like sliders, tabs, and checkboxes

If roles aren’t explicitly defined, browsers often assign implicit roles. For example:

<button> → role="button"

<h1> → role="heading"

Read more:

CSS Selectors in Playwright

Using XPath in Playwright

Writing Locators for Dynamic Elements

Handling Dynamic Content

Working with Page Waits and Timeouts

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