Why Angular ARIA in v21 is pretty neat
Source: Dev.to
Angular ARIA is a collection of headless, accessible directives that implement common WAI‑ARIA patterns. The directives handle keyboard interactions, ARIA attributes, focus management, and screen‑reader support. All you have to provide is the HTML structure, CSS styling, and business logic.
The Angular team released a brand‑new set of directives with v21 (Nov 19 2025). This approach contrasts with the opinionated, plug‑and‑play design of Angular Material; both are built on top of the Angular CDK A11y package.
Components
In the first release of v21, the following 12 components / directives / UI patterns are available:
Future extensions are planned.
Why is this neat?
Using the Angular ARIA directives lets you offload heavy lifting—keyboard handling, ARIA attributes, focus management—to the Angular team while retaining full control over markup, styling (CSS, SCSS, Tailwind, etc.), and business logic. For more context on NG v21, see Jessica’s talk at ViteConf on YouTube.
When to use Angular ARIA?
- You know how to style components (at least senior‑level CSS skills).
- You are building a custom Design System or an enterprise component library.
- You prefer to handcraft everything yourself rather than adopt a pre‑built design system.
When to avoid Angular ARIA?
- You don’t know how to style (junior‑level CSS – consider a styling workshop).
- You already use a Design System or enterprise component library that covers accessibility.
- You don’t care about accessibility (which is strongly discouraged).
Angular Styling Best Choices Matrix
| Angular Material 🔌 | 3rd‑party DS 🎨 | Angular ARIA ♿ | Custom UI 🛠️ | Custom DS 🏢 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design | Very opinionated | Plug & Play | 🤷 Depends on you | 🤷 Depends on you | 🤷 Depends on you |
| Accessibility | Plug & Play | Usually okay | ⭐ Best Choice | 🤷 Depends on you | 🤷 Depends on you |
| Effort | ⭐ Very low | 🙂 Medium | 😬 High | 😅 Only if 1 app | 💀 Boss will kill ya |
| CSS Skills | 🟢 None | 🟡 Junior | 🔴 Senior | 🔴 Senior | 🟣 Master |
| Customization | 🔒 Hard | 🤷 Depends | ✔ Included | ♾️ No limits | ⭐ Best Choice |
| NG Updates | 🚫 Don’t customize | 😬 Sometimes painful | 🙂 Smooth | 😎 Very smooth | 😵 A lot of work |
| Use it for | 🚀 Prototypes & demos | 💸 Low‑budget/legacy | 🌱 Greenfield | 🎨 Hobbies | 🏢 Enterprise apps |
Workshops
Deep‑dive into Angular with our workshops (available in English and German):
- Best Practices Workshop 📈 (includes Design Systems & ARIA)
- NG Styling Workshop 🎨 (includes Design Systems)
- Accessibility Workshop ♿ (covers WAI‑ARIA)
- Performance Workshop 🚀
Conclusion
Angular ARIA delivers headless, accessible building blocks for fully customizable Angular components. By shifting complexity—keyboard handling, ARIA attributes, focus management—to the Angular team, it is ideal for custom design systems and tailored UIs without the constraints of heavy, opinionated frameworks.