Bullets and numbered lists
Lists are a good way to break up ideas, information or text into smaller chunks. You could use a bulleted list or a numbered list.
Bullets example
Our expert advisers provide guidance and support, helping businesses to achieve their innovation ambitions and drive growth.
Drawing on a wide range of skills and experience, we can help you:
- Understand important areas of innovation that are relevant for your business
- Review and analyse your innovation activities
- Develop and implement changes that will help you meet your innovation and business goals
Numbered list example
To get started with exporting, you should:
- Do your research - get to know your markets, customers, competitors and rights.
- Assess your capability - take a close look at your product, business and teams to make sure you can manage the changes you want to make.
- Create an export plan - detail the decisions you’ve made based on your market research, your objectives and how you plan to achieve them.
How to use lists
Bulleted or numbered lists are an effective way to break longer content up into digestible chunks. They're easier to scan than a paragraph of text.
Bulleted lists
- Make bullets consistent – they should follow the same style and each should start with the same part of speech - noun, verb and so forth.
- Be concise – make them short, not rambling paragraphs.
- Try to keep the list as short as possible.
- Get the order right – if you’re describing a process, make sure the first bullet talks about the first step. If you’re listing a series of points, start with the most important one.
- Start each point with a capital letter and don’t use a full stop at the end unless the bullet is a full sentence. If the bullet is not a full sentence, make sure a lead-in phrase is included. Don’t use commas or semi-colons at the end.
Numbered lists
Use numbered lists instead of bulleted lists when the order of the items is relevant. You do not need to use a lead-in line for numbered lists.
Adding lists in the CMS
To add a list to a page, you first need to add a text component to a panel or component. Type or paste in your bullets on individual lines, then highlight the text and click either the bullet option or numbered list option in the rich text editor menu.
You can add lists to any text component in a panel or within components like accordions, cards, gradient panels or 50:50s.
Bullets and numbers lists modifier rules
There are no specific modifiers that apply to bullets. Follow the modifier rules for whichever component your bullets or numbered list appears in.
Accessibility
When screen readers come to a properly marked up list, they will notify the user that there is a list and how many items are in it. Using the bulleted list function in the rich text editor will make sure that this markup is automatically added. Don't try to manually add bullets by adding a dash or other icon to the start of each line.
Evidence and research
Our bullet style has been updated to look clearer on the page. Users said that they were clear and using bullets on a page made them want to stop and read rather than skip content or skim read.