Campus Calendar

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Diversity at the UW – University of Washington

About the UW

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

December 2025

November 2025

University of Washington

Title / URL	Issues
Campus Calendarwww.washington.edu/calendar/	10
UW Homepagewww.washington.edu/	9
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.washington.edu/	9
UW Homepagewww.washington.edu/	9
Page not found \| University of Washingtonwww.washington.edu/invented-url-for-404-page	9
UW Newswww.washington.edu/news/	6
Give to the UWwww.washington.edu/giving/	4
UW Jobswww.washington.edu/jobs/	4
Diversity at the UW – University of Washingtonwww.washington.edu/diversity/	2
About the UWwww.washington.edu/about/	1

Ensure lists are marked up correctly

University of Washington

Where this issue has occurred