ARIA 1.3's definition-list roles die in draft, leaving `<dl>` where it started
Every URL the pipeline pulled into ranking for this issue — primary sources plus the supporting and contradicting findings each Researcher returned. Inline citations in the issue point back here.
Sources
- simonwillison.net
- can be followed by multiple
- You can optionally group the
- and
- elements in a for styling - but only a. You can label them using ARIA. 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 > Jeffre…
On the
I learned a few new-to-me things about the
element from this article by Ben Meyer: A
References
Adrian Roselli — Updated Brief Note on Description List Support (Jan 2025) adrianroselli.com
Support is generally good… but it lands on a ‘Sure’ rather than a ‘Yup’. Don’t expect consistent list item counts or specialized list navigation commands across all platforms.
WHATWG HTML issue #1937 github.com
Alternatives proposed included , a new or tag… was ultimately selected because it is semantically neutral and already supported by browser parsers.
Hacker News commenter on Ben Myers post news.ycombinator.com
If 99% of usage routes around your API by using div soup, the fault lies with the API design rather than the developers.
Hacker News thread on dl semantics news.ycombinator.com
In a simple ‘Author: Tolkien’ pair, does ‘Tolkien’ truly ‘define’ the ‘term’ ‘Author’? The labels Description List, Term, and Details often fail to fit common data models.
Scott O’Hara — Redundantly Redundant scottohara.me
First Rule of ARIA: if a native HTML solution exists, use it instead of ARIA. Labeling a list with the same text as a preceding heading causes the name to be read twice.
