Faculty & Staff

What to Do

Emergencies

Parents & Family

Ferguson Career Center

Visit H-SC

Lists (e.g., `<ul>` or `<ol>`) should only contain list items (`<li>`) as a direct descendant 
to ensure that screen readers can accurately report the amount of items contained in the list. 

## Example

In the following example, some screen readers would say this list has two items, instead of 
four: 

```html
<ul>
    <div class="some_class">
        <li>Example 1</li>
    </div>
    <div class="some_other_class">
        <li>Example 2</li>
        <li>Example 3</li>
        <li>Example 4</li>
    </div>
</ul>
```

To fix this, you would need to remove the `<div class="some_class">` and 
`<div class="some_other_class>` elements and ensure only `<li>` list items remain.

## Further reading

The [formal specification for the list element](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ul)
shows what is and is not permitted inside an `<ul>` and `<ol>`.

See [Technique H88](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H88.html) for more information.

list-not-following-semantics

January 2025

December 2024

Hampden-Sydney College

Title / URL	Issues
Faculty & Staffwww.hsc.edu/faculty-and-staff	5
What to Dowww.hsc.edu/student-life/what-to-do	5
Emergencieswww.hsc.edu/emergencies	3
Parents & Familywww.hsc.edu/parents-and-family	2
Ferguson Career Centerwww.hsc.edu/academics/career-center	2
Visit H-SCwww.hsc.edu/about-h-sc/visit-h-sc	1

Ensure lists are marked up correctly

Hampden-Sydney College

Where this issue has occurred