Accessible Lists

Lists are a useful format to organize information. Bulleted lists are useful to group items and numbered lists organize instructions and other sequences of information. As lists visually indicate a specific meaning, lists must be created properly to be accessible and to ensure everyone understands the information in your material. Brightspace’s Accessibility Checker will flag manually created lists and prompt creators to make accessible lists.

Who benefits from accessible lists

Creating lists using asterisks or dashes will not inform assistive technology that the content is part of a list. A manually created list may look like a list but does not function as a list. It is important that everyone is made aware of the presence of a list and its structure.

The following demonstrates screen reader software reading properly and improperly built lists.

Properly formatted lists organize information and make your content accessible.

• Use bullet lists to group items.
• A bullet list is best where the sequence is not important.

1. Use numbered lists for items where sequence is important.
2. Create a numbered list item by item to show order.

How to fix it

The Brightspace Accessibility Checker will flag improperly created lists with the error: The selected text appears to be a list. Lists should be formatted using a list tag.

Selecting the error will highlight the first line of the “list” in question. Highlight the entire list, open the List menu and choose Bulleted List or Numbered List.

How to prevent it next time

Use the list tools to start a new list or highlight existing content and select Bulleted List or Numbered list from the List menu.

When using list tools to create lists, pressing Enter will automatically populate a new list item. Press Enter twice to exit the list.