How to semantically provide a caption, title or label for a list in HTML

Question

What is the proper way to provide a semantic caption for an HTML list? For example, the following list has a "title"/"caption".

Fruit

• Apple
• Pear
• Orange

How should the word "fruit" be handled, in a such way that it is semantically associated with the list itself?

Answer 1

While there is no caption or heading element structuring your markup effectively can have the same effect. Here are some suggestions:

Nested List

<ul>
    <li>
        Fruit
        <ul>
            <li>Apple</li>
            <li>Pear</li>
            <li>Organge</li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

---

Heading Prior to List

<hX>Fruit</hX>
<ul>
    <li>Apple</li>
    <li>Pear</li>
    <li>Orange</li>
</ul>

---

Definition List

<dl>
  <dt>Fruit</dt>
  <dd>Apple</dd>
  <dd>Pear</dd>
  <dd>Orange</dd>
</dl>

Answer 2

Option 1

HTML5 has the figure and figcaption elements, which I find work quite nicely.

Example:

<figure>
    <figcaption>Fruit</figcaption>
    <ul>
        <li>Apple</li>
        <li>Pear</li>
        <li>Orange</li>
    </ul>
</figure>

These are then easily styled with CSS.

---

Option 2

Using CSS3's ::before pseudo-element can be a nice solution:

HTML:

<ul title="Fruit">
    <li>Apple</li>
    <li>Pear</li>
    <li>Orange</li>
</ul>

CSS:

ul[title]::before {
    content: attr(title);
    /* then add some nice styling as needed, eg: */
    display: block;
    font-weight: bold;
    padding: 4px;
}

You can, of course, use a different selector than ul[title]; for example, you could add a 'title-as-header' class and use ul.title-as-header::before instead, or whatever you need.

This does have the side effect of giving you a tooltip for the whole list. If you don't want such a tooltip, you could use a data attribute instead (e.g., <ul data-title="fruit"> and ul[data-title]::before { content: attr(data-title); }).

Answer 3

As far as I know, there are no provisions in current HTML specs for providing a caption for a list, as there are with tables. I'd stay with using either a classed paragraph, or a header tag for now.

<h3>Fruit</h3>
<ul>
    <li>Apple</li>
    <li>Pear</li>
    <li>Orange</li>
</ul>

In the future, when HTML5 gains wider adoption, you will be able to use the <legend> and <figure> tags to accomplish this slightly more semantically.

See this post on the W3C mailing list for more information.

Answer 4

There is no caption-like tag for a list like a table has. So I'd just give it an <Hx> (x depending on your previously used headers).

Answer 5

You can always use <label/> to associate label to your list element:

<div>
    <label for="list-2">TEST</label>
    <ul id="list-1">
        <li>one</li>
        <li>two</li>
        <li>three</li>
    </ul>
    <label for="list-2">TEST</label>
    <ol id="list-2">
        <li>one</li>
        <li>two</li>
        <li>three</li>
    </ul>
</div>