Ensure <li> Elements Are Used Semantically

Yotam Flohr
Researcher
Blind Hearing Mobility
WCAG 2.1 Level A

Written and researched for humans by humans

Yotam Flohr
Researcher
Ritvik Shrivastava
Expertly reviewed by
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Web accessibility standards require all list items (li) to be contained within ul or ol parent elements.

Why It Matters

Screen readers notify users when they encounter a list, and tell them how many items are in a list. 

When lists are not marked up correctly using proper semantic markup in a hierarchy, screen readers users won’t know what they are listening to. 

Fixing the Issue

Ensure that all list item li elements are wrapped inside of ul or ol parent elements.

List items may be contained in either unordered (bullet) lists or ordered (sequentially numbered) lists.

Good Code Example

Code example
<ul> <li>Coffee</li> <li>Tea</li> <li>Milk</li> </ul> Copy

Bad Code Example

Code example
<li>Coffee</li> <li>Tea</li> <li>Milk</li> Copy