Problems and complaints | SF.gov

Building permits | SF.gov

Business | SF.gov

Housing | SF.gov

SF.gov

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Lists of related items should be written [semantically](https://html.com/semantic-markup/) as a 
list.

Usually this means rewriting these to use the `<ul>` or `<ol>` tags.

This allows assistive technologies to more easily navigate from item to
item, or past entire groups of links if the user wants to. 

## Examples 

### Navigation

This navigation:

```html
<a href="/about">About us</a>
<a href="/products">Products</a>
<a href="/contact">Contact us</a>
```

Should be rewritten as a list:

```html
<ul>
  <li><a href="/about">About us</a></li>
  <li><a href="/products">Products</a></li>
  <li><a href="/contact">Contact us</a></li>
</ul>
```

### Tables for content

This single-column table is redundant. There is no
value in placing the content in a table, which makes
it harder for screen reader users to interpret and interact
with.

```html
<table>
  <tr>
    <td>
      Banana
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
      Apple
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
      Pear
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
```

Should be rewritten as a list:

```html
<ul>
  <li>Banana</li>
  <li>Apple</li>
  <li>Pear</li>
</ul>
```

## Justification

Users of assistive technologies, like screen readers, can skip an entire
list in one step. In some cases, they can even search inside a list. 

These aids are not available where links are written outside a list. 
Failing to use lists correctly can force users to have to step through
hundreds of items one at a time.

## Methodology

1. Any single-column tables are automatically considered 
   redundant lists. 
2. For non-table elements, recursively work down the page looking inside
   each element for links separated by minimal amounts of non-link text. 
   If the non-link text is below 30 characters 
   in length, we assume we're inside content that should be a list.
   Some exceptions are made, e.g. the presence of an `<hr>` would break
   out of the list.

## More information

See [Technique
H48](https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20161007/H48) for
details.

mark-navigation-section-as-list

May 2025

April 2025

City of San Francisco

Title / URL	Issues
Problems and complaints \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/topics--problems-and-complaints	9
Building permits \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/topics--building-permits	7
Business \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/topics--business	7
Housing \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/topics--housing	6
SF.govwww.sf.gov/	5
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.sf.gov/	5
SF.govwww.sf.gov/fil	5
SF.govwww.sf.gov/es	5
SF.govwww.sf.gov/zh-hant	5
SF.govwww.sf.gov/invented-url-for-404-page	4

Write lists or groups of links semantically

City of San Francisco

Where this issue has occurred