ARIA role validation challenge

Question

With this code:

<ul class="tabs-nav" role="tablist" >
       <li role="tab"><a href="#newspane"  id="tab-newnews">Latest News</a></li>
       <li role="tab"><a href="#presspane" id="tab-press"  >Press Releases</a></li>
</ul>

<div>
     <div id="pane-newnews" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="tab-newnews" aria-hidden="false">
        <p>Lorem</p>          
     </div>

     <div id="pane-press" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="tab-press" aria-hidden="true">
         <p>Ipsem</p>                     
     </div>
 </div>

I get this error on the W3C Validator:

"Bad value tablist for attribute role on element div"

I have turned over every rock in the documentation and find no reason this would not validate. Can anyone explain what I am doing wrong?

Thank you!

Answer 1

The W3C Validator is experimental a HTML5 checker and ARIA checking does not currently allow ARIA landmark roles.

See Steve Faulkner's post over at The Paciello Group Blog

Answer 2

You can use the W3C New Markup validation service to check for ARIA http://validator.w3.org/nu/ But note that ARIA is only conforming for use in HTML5, not that it makes any difference to whther it works or not. ARIA works equally well with any flavour of (X)HTML, its only the validtors that choke.