This was another easy one -- but as expected the discussion got more interesting as additional related questions were asked. The question itself is becoming secondary to the conversation happening alongside.
Notable Comments
Overwhelmingly, it was D all the way. I guess I sort of gave it away, orginally titling it "Part II: Unordered Lists". We've learned some good stuff here though.
web:
Yeah, I’d go with D as well, but to be noted is the lack of KitKats in your list.
Dully noted.
There are a few situations where code like A could be used, though. Marking up a poem, for example.
Which prompted others to ask about using pre or br / to markup a poem. Tough to call,
and even the W3C uses a poem as an example of both methods.
Did anyone ever fall into the trap of identifying every bit of content on a page as a list, ordered and unordered? I was that close to declaring the bodytext on a page as an inline ordered list.
In fact, Doug Bowman pointed me to Tantek Çelik's move to using a series of lists to handle most of his weblog's structure.
Also certainly worth a look again, is Doug's Overused Lists? article -- where he explores the differences between using pipe-delimited vs. an unordered list for navigation. The pipe-delimited method could've easily been option E in this quiz question, and may have divided the results a bit.
I think even one item can constitute a list.
And according to the W3C, this is true.
You’d have to change the stylesheet and the markup if you wanted to do something as simple as add a border around your list.
Exactly. Using a ul makes it easier to change styles with CSS.
Matt Haughey poses some questions that are far more intriguing than the quiz itself:
When should someone put something in a list instead of using line breaks? How to do screenreaders interpret lists?
To which Patrick H. Lauke responds with perhaps the most insightful information of the discussion:
... yes, they do treat lists differently from normal text broken up by line breaks. JAWS, for instance, announces that it's an "unordered list with 5 items". I imagine other screenreaders will provide similar information.
That to me, is a huge reason for using lists when in doubt. And after being asked whether the declaration of how many list items there are would be a hinderance to blind users, Patrick went on to offer this:
... they will know how many links there are (i.e. whether it’s only 5 items or 50), which will influence how they will choose to navigate the site.
I realize I could go on quoting everything else -- because there are other great points raised as a result of another seemingly ELEMENTary (sorry) question.
Summary
A simple list of items should most likely be structured with a ul element. Why is the better way?
- D is more easily styled with CSS without having to modify the markup.
- Using a
ulto markup lists makes it easier for screenreader users to hear how many items are contained. - An unordered list may be better represented in a small screen such as a phone or PDA -- where unintentional line-wrapping may occurr.