Which tag to use for social media icons

Which tags should wrap a social media icon in respect to accessibility? I have this div, containing social media icons:

  <div class="social-media-container" role="region">
      <div>
        <ion-icon name="logo-facebook"><a href="#"></a></ion-icon>
      </div>
      <div>
        <ion-icon name="logo-twitter"><a href="#"></a></ion-icon>
      </div>
      <div>
        <ion-icon name="logo-instagram"><a href="#"></a></ion-icon> 
      </div>
    </div>

Wrapped in a div with an aria-ole are three social media icons. Which tag should I use for them in respect to accessibility?

Solution

As far as I know, there isn't a specific tag which should be used to wrap icons. However, you can do some things to make your icons accessible, as from Font Awesome docs:

If your icons have semantic meaning, you’ll need to manually add a few things so that your icon is appropriately accessible:

aria-hidden="true" attribute.

Provide a text alternative inside a (or similar) element. Also include appropriate CSS to visually hide the element while keeping it accessible to assisitive technologies.

title attribute on the icon to provide a tooltip for sighted mouse users.

According to that, your HTML would be this way:


<div class="social-media-container" role="region">
  <div>
    <a href="#">
       <ion-icon name="logo-facebook" aria-hidden="true" title="Visit our Facebook webpage"></ion-icon>
       <span class="sr-only">Visit our Facebook webpage</span>
    </a>
  </div>
  <div>
    <a href="#">
       <ion-icon name="logo-twitter" aria-hidden="true" title="Visit our Twitter webpage"></ion-icon>
       <span class="sr-only">Visit our Twitter webpage</span>
    </a>
  </div>
  <div>
    <a href="#">
       <ion-icon name="logo-instagram" aria-hidden="true" title="Visit our Instagram webpage"></ion-icon>
       <span class="sr-only">Visit our Instagram webpage</span>
    </a>
  </div>
</div>