The term "aria" can refer to two distinct concepts:
- In music, an aria is a self-contained piece for one voice, often with instrumental or orchestral accompaniment, typically part of a larger work like an opera. It is an expressive melody performed by a singer, used also in oratorios and cantatas.
- In web technology, ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It is a set of HTML roles and attributes developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to improve web accessibility for people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers. ARIA helps make web content and applications more inclusive by providing extra semantic information about elements, defining roles, states, and properties to communicate with assistive technologies. It is especially useful for dynamic or custom web components where native HTML does not provide sufficient accessibility features.
If the interest is in web development and accessibility, ARIA refers to the accessibility standards and attributes for improving user interaction with assistive technologies. If the interest is in music, an aria is a vocal solo piece within a larger composition.
