List formatting

Issue

A group of more than two related items is presented in paragraph form, separated by commas or is presented as a list but not marked up (coded) as a list.

Who’s affected

People with cognitive disabilities, screen reader users and anyone scanning the page. The bulleted or numbered (depending on the list) structure conveys meaning and helps the user focus.

WCAG standard

Guideline 1.3.1 Information and Relationships

What to do

Use the bulleted or numbered list styles available in the text formatting tools of your editing software to designate the items as a list. If your items must be in a particular order or ranking, use a numbered (ordered) list. Otherwise, use a bulleted (unordered) list.

Recommended tools

WAVE accessibility checker – Use the structure tab to see if a list is actually marked up as a list.