Based off an answer I recently read, it seems a button has categories including “interactive content”, but a div does not fall into the “interactive content” category. If a div element has role="button" attached to it would a modern browser then interpret that element as having a category of “interactive content”?

<div role="button" ...

The MDN agrees that buttons are “interactive” and further states… (emphasis mine)

Adding role=”button” tells the screen reader the element is a button, but provides no button functionality

…so if the element “is a button, but provides no button functionality”, I would assume that means the role makes it interactive content. The ARIA specification says the following about a “Role”: (emphasis mine)

Main indicator of type. This semantic association allows tools to present and support interaction with the object in a manner that is consistent with user expectations about other objects of that type.

Maybe I’m getting too hung up on the terminology and there’s not a functional difference here. Logically, I think that <div role="button" means an element is “interactive content”, but it would be satisfying to see where in the specification it’s called out that a div element becomes “interactive content” through the role="button" attribute.

Is there a section in the HTML Standard that calls that out?