Structure
List items must sit inside a list
- Rule:
listitem - Severity: Serious
- WCAG level A
Why it matters
An <li> outside a <ul> or <ol> has no list to belong to. Its position and the total count — the two things that make a list navigable — do not exist.
How to fix it
- Wrap the items in <ul> or <ol>.
- Where a framework injects a wrapper between them, give it role="presentation".
In markup
<div>
<li>First</li>
</div><ul>
<li>First</li>
</ul>The requirement behind it
This rule is one way of failing the following WCAG 2.2 success criteria. The W3C, which writes the standard, explains each of them:
- 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (opens in new tab) — WCAG level A
Further reading
Deque University on listitem (opens in new tab)
Deque maintains axe-core, the open-source engine our scanner runs. Their page documents the rule as the engine implements it.
Automated checks find failures a browser can prove. They cannot judge whether a caption is accurate, whether an alt text is useful, or whether a page can be operated end to end with a keyboard — those need a person.