Online Programs | Academics | William & Mary

Research & Scholarship | William & Mary

W&M at a Glance | About W&M | William & Mary

William & Mary

Current Student Resources | William & Mary

Centers & Institutes | Research & Scholarship | William & Mary

A | William & Mary

Academics | William & Mary

Tuition & Fees | Admission & Aid | William & Mary

The W&M Difference | About W&M | William & Mary

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

August 2025

July 2025

The College of William and Mary

	Title / URL	Issues
	Online Programs \| Academics \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/academics/online/	2
	Research & Scholarship \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/research/	2
	W&M at a Glance \| About W&M \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/about/wmataglance/	1
	William & Marywww.wm.edu/	1
	Current Student Resources \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/currentstudents/	1
	Centers & Institutes \| Research & Scholarship \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/research/centers/	1
	A \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/atoz/a/	1
	Academics \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/academics/	1
	Tuition & Fees \| Admission & Aid \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/admission/tuition/	1
	The W&M Difference \| About W&M \| William & Marywww.wm.edu/about/wmdifference/	1

Write lists or groups of links semantically

The College of William and Mary

Where this issue has occurred