Is an aria-label needed for basic (all) link tags?

it should still fix some issue I'm trying to add the aria-label attribute to a link to make it more accessible. When I'm doing this, it works as expected: , It's the dash on the label creating the problem. Try this instead:

<%= link_to t('nav.projects'), projects_path, class: is_active('projects'), 'aria-label' => get_aria_label_current_page('home') %>

'aria-label': get_aria_label_current_page('home')

like below fixes the issue ARIA does not define how assistive tech are to expose UI. It does define how browsers are required to expose roles, states and properties via accessibility APIs. It's the same with HTML in general, the HTML spec does not define/require UI, that is left up to the browsers to decide. In the case of aria-label (for example) it is a requirement in ARIA that aria-label is mapped to the accessible name property in accessibility APIs, it is not a requirment that screen readers announce it, or not, on any given element (i.e. expose as part of the aural UI). General observed rule is that screen readers will announce accessible names and accessible descriptions on interactive elements. They will announce accessible names on most grouping elements and sectioning elements. They will announce neither on most text level elements.
Note: the above also applies to any element that has it's default semantics overidden with ARIA roles. For example ARIA widget roles will have both acc name and description announced, like native HTML interactive elements.

it should still fix some issue Best practice, arguably, is to use . It provides a larger hit area and offers a visual label that does not go away when the field gets focus (which is what happens in your example).
Since designs sometimes visually hide the label text, there is not much benefit to using a and completely hiding it. In that scenario, using aria-label is probably fine in the context of a search form.

<input type="text" value="" placeholder="Search" aria-label="Search">
<input type="image" src="/searchbutton.gif" alt="Submit">

this one helps. You have to set an alt attribute on the img. aria will only be useful for supporting screenreader users which only covers less than 1% of the population.
See H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements

<a href="myvideo.webm" class="video">
    <img src="myimage.png" alt="insert something descriptive here">
</a>