Simon Willison · · 1 min read

On the <dl>

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On the <dl>

I learned a few new-to-me things about the <dl> element from this article by Ben Meyer:

  1. A <dt> can be followed by multiple <dd>
  2. You can optionally group the <dt> and <dd> elements in a <div> for styling - but only a <div>.
  3. You can label them using ARIA.
  4. They've been called "description lists", not "definition lists", since an HTML5 draft in 2008. So this is valid:
<h2 id="credits">Credits</h2>
<dl aria-labelledby="credits">
  <div>
    <dt>Author</dt>
    <dd>Jeffrey Zeldman</dd>
    <dd>Ethan Marcotte</dd>
  </div>
</dl>

Here's a useful note from Adrian Roselli on screen reader support for description lists.

Via Hacker News

Tags: css, html, screen-readers, web-standards

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