University Library

Student Life

About Maryville University

Division of Student Success

Office of the President

Human Resources

Policy Library

Alumni

Strategic Marketing and Communications

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

August 2025

July 2025

Maryville University

Title / URL	Issues
University Librarywww.maryville.edu/library/	11
Student Lifewww.maryville.edu/studentlife	11
About Maryville Universitywww.maryville.edu/about/	11
Division of Student Successwww.maryville.edu/studentsuccess	11
Office of the Presidentwww.maryville.edu/president/	11
Human Resourceswww.maryville.edu/hr/	11
Policy Librarywww.maryville.edu/policies/	11
About Maryville Universitywww.maryville.edu/about	11
Alumniwww.maryville.edu/alumni/	11
Strategic Marketing and Communicationswww.maryville.edu/marketing/	11

Ensure lists are marked up correctly

Maryville University

Where this issue has occurred