Carbon Design System

Menu

Stable
Last updated Sep 30, 2026
Carbon Core

    A menu is a list of interactive options that appears when users interact with an element or perform a specific action.

    Menu

    What Carbon provides

    Carbon bakes keyboard operation into its components, improving the experience of blind users and others who operate via keyboard. Carbon incorporates many other accessibility considerations, some of which are described below.

    Keyboard interaction

    The menu is reached by Tab. When the menu is open, the first item takes focus. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to navigate between menu items.

    accessibility-menu-1

    Menu is reached by Tab and when opened, the first menu item takes focus. Arrow keys move focus.

    Pressing Space or Enter on a focused menu item activates it and collapses the menu. Pressing Space or Enter on a submenu opens it. A submenu can also be opened and closed using the right and left arrow keys respectively. When the menu or submenu is open, the first item takes focus. An activated menu item can have different results depending on its functionality. If the item is a link, it launches the selection. If the item is selectable, it selects or deselects the item. The menu item retains its selected or unselected state when the menu is opened again.

    accessibility-menu-2

    Space and Enter keys activates, selects, or deselects the menu item with focus. A submenu is opened and closed with the right and left arrow keys respectively.

    Development considerations

    Keep these considerations in mind if you are modifying Carbon or creating a custom component.

    • Each menu, including nested menus, are ul elements with role="menu".
    • Menu items are li elements with role="menuitem".
    • If a Menu item contains a sub-menu, it is given aria-haspopup="true" and aria-expanded of true or false depending on if the sub-menu is open/visible.
    • Selectable menu items are given role="menuitemcheckbox".
    • Menu item groups are li elements with role="group".
    • Menu item radio groups get role="menuitemradio".
    • Menu items with really long labels can get truncated depending on the screen size. This label will be exposed by a browser rendered tooltip on hover or focus.
    • Menu implements the menu design pattern defined in the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG).

    Accessibility testing status

    Latest version: 1.114.0 | Framework: React (@carbon/react)

    ComponentAccessibility testStatusLink to source code
    MenuTest(s) that ensure the initial render state of a component is accessible.Passes all automated tests with no reported accessibility violations.GitHub link
    Tests that ensure additional states of the component are accessible. This could be interactive states of a component or its multiple variants.Automated or manual testing has been temporarily deferred.
    Tests that ensure focus is properly managed, and all interactive functions of a component have a proper keyboard-accessible equivalent.Some tests are incomplete, in progress, invalid, or temporarily skipped.
    This manual testing ensures that the visual information on the screen is properly conveyed and read correctly by screen readers such as JAWS, VoiceOver, and NVDA.A human has manually tested this component, e.g. screen reader testing.
    Learn more about tag and test meaningView all component accessibility status

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