Names for icon-only buttons: Crawl Audit check 175

Short answer: a button that shows only an icon, like a magnifying glass or a cross, has no name unless you give it one. A screen reader then just says "button", and the visitor has to guess. Check 175 fails when buttons or links have no accessible name.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Full audit: it reads Lighthouse's "Buttons have an accessible name" audit and fails if any button lacks one.
• Free check: it looks for <button> or <a> elements with no text, no aria-label and no title.

The free check doesn't count aria-labelledby or the alt text of an image inside a link, so it can flag a control that is actually named. The full audit is more accurate.

What the sources say

• Lighthouse: "When a button doesn't have an accessible name, screen readers announce it as "button", making it unusable for users who rely on screen readers."
• WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value, level A, asks that the name and role of every control "can be programmatically determined".
• WebAIM's 2026 survey found empty links on 46.3% of top home pages and empty buttons on 30.6%.

Three ways to name it

<button aria-label="Search"><svg aria-hidden="true">...</svg></button>

<button><svg aria-hidden="true">...</svg><span class="sr-only">Search</span></button>

<a href="/cart"><img src="cart.svg" alt="Your cart"></a>

Name it for what it does ("Close menu"), not what it shows ("X").

On devmarde.com

Our homepage had no unnamed buttons or links on 6 October, in both Crawl Audit's check and Lighthouse's audit. It passes.

Sources

• Lighthouse, button-name audit.
• W3C, Understanding 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.
• WebAIM, The WebAIM Million (2026), checked 6 October 2026.