Building a Safe and Respectful Digital World | The Governor General of Canada

Represent. Serve. Honour. Showcase. | The Governor General of Canada

Role and Responsibilities | The Governor General of Canada

Priorities | The Governor General of Canada

Governor General's Awards | The Governor General of Canada

Error 404 - Page Not Found | The Governor General of Canada

Governor General | The Governor General of Canada

Order of Canada | The Governor General of Canada

Decorations for Bravery | The Governor General of Canada

Canadian Honours | The Governor General of Canada

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

June 2025

May 2025

Governor General of Canada

Title / URL	Issues
Building a Safe and Respectful Digital World \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/digital-respect	2
Represent. Serve. Honour. Showcase. \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/	2
Role and Responsibilities \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/governor-general/role-and-responsibilities	2
Priorities \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/governor-general/priorities	2
Governor General's Awards \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/honours/governor-generals-awards	2
Error 404 - Page Not Found \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/invented-url-for-404-page?lan=eng	2
Governor General \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/governor-general	2
Order of Canada \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/honours/canadian-honours/order-canada	2
Decorations for Bravery \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/honours/canadian-honours/decorations-bravery	2
Canadian Honours \| The Governor General of Canadawww.gg.ca/en/honours/canadian-honours	2

Write lists or groups of links semantically

Governor General of Canada

Where this issue has occurred