--- title: "Description list" description: "Presents what is known about one thing as named facts, a quiet term and the value that answers it, with the terms beside their values, above them, or under a large figure. It is laid out by its own width and is never a control." url: "https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/description-list/" last_updated: 2026-10-23T21:17:12.000Z --- # Description list > Presents what is known about one thing as named facts, a quiet term and the value that answers it, with the terms beside their values, above them, or under a large figure. It is laid out by its own width and is never a control. ## Overview A description list shows the facts of one thing: an order, a file, an account, a component. Each fact is a term and the value that answers it. The term is a quiet label; the value is what a person came for. Three layouts draw the same facts: | `layout` | Draws | Use for | | --- | --- | --- | | `inline` (default) | The term beside its value. Every term is in one column, as wide as the widest term. | A block of facts a person looks things up in. | | `stacked` | The term above its value. | Long values or long terms, and facts in several columns. | | `stat` | The value first, as a large figure, with the term under it as its label. | The few numbers a screen opens with. | On the web it is `` around your own native `
`. The element has no shadow root and gives the list no role, so a screen reader, a crawler and a page without script all meet an ordinary HTML description list. The other platforms have not implemented it yet. ### Usage **Web** ```html
Order
A-20418
Owners
Aiko Tanaka
Samir Haddad
Status
 ``` **React** ```tsx import { DescriptionList } from '@tanrei/react'; import '@tanrei/web/description-list.css';
{figures.map((figure) => (
{figure.label}
{figure.value}
))}
``` `@tanrei/web/description-list.css` draws the whole list before any script runs. The element adds the same stylesheet to the page by itself, so a page that loads only the script still gets a drawn list, a moment later. ### What you write | Part | On the web | | --- | --- | | A fact | A `
` inside the `
`, around one `
` and its `
`s. | | A term | The `
`. Text, or a component that the value explains (a tag in a legend). Write no colon. | | A value | A `
`. Text, a component, or nothing. | | Several values | Several `
` in one fact. Each is drawn on a line of its own. | A `
` without the `
` groups, as some Markdown renderers write it, is still drawn in one column, inline or stacked. `columns` and the stat layout need the groups. ## Specs - Category: Containment - Level: base - Listing: default - Page: https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/description-list/ - Spec: https://github.com/chnotchy/tanrei/blob/main/specs/description-list.spec.json ### Availability | Design system | Has it | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | | Tanrei (`tanrei`) | Yes | — | | Cupertino (Apple HIG-inspired) (`cupertino`) | Yes | — | | M3 Expressive-like (Material 3 Expressive-inspired) (`m3-expressive-like`) | Yes | — | | M3-like (Material 3-inspired) (`m3-like`) | Yes | — | ### Platforms - Web: the element ``, registered by importing `@tanrei/web` (or only its own module, `@tanrei/web/components/description-list`). - React: `DescriptionList` from `@tanrei/react`. | Platform | Name | Status | | --- | --- | --- | | Web | `tanrei-description-list` | lagging | | SwiftUI | `TanreiDescriptionList` | planned | | Jetpack Compose | `TanreiDescriptionList` | planned | | Flutter | `TanreiDescriptionList` | planned | | React Native | `DescriptionList` | planned | Statuses: `planned` — In the inventory. Nothing shippable exists yet. `lagging` — An implementation of an earlier spec exists; it has not caught up with the current one. `alpha` — Implemented with tests. The API may still change. `beta` — Feature complete and at parity. Only fixes are expected. `stable` — Covered by semantic versioning. `deprecated` — Still shipped; scheduled for removal. ### Anatomy - `container`: The list's box: as wide as its layout gives it, as tall as its facts. It has no fill, edge, corner or outer space of its own, and carries no state: nothing about it answers a pointer, a press or focus. - `fact`: One term with the value or values that answer it. Facts are drawn in the order given: one under another, or in equal columns. - `term`: The name of a fact, in a label style and a quieter color than its value: beside the value in a column all terms share, above it, or — in the stat layout — under it as the figure's label. Text, or a component of the product's (a tag that is explained by the value). - `value`: What answers the term: text that wraps inside its column, or a component of the product's (a tag, a link, inline code, a button). A fact may have several, each on a line of its own. In the stat layout the first value is the figure, in a heading style. - `divider` (optional): The one hairline between a fact and the fact below it, where facts are told apart by a line. ### Props | Prop | Type | Default | Web attribute | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `layout` | `enum`: `inline`, `stacked`, `stat` | `"inline"` | `layout` | How a fact is drawn. inline: the term beside its value, every term in one column as wide as the widest term; the list draws its terms above their values by itself while it is too narrow for that (DSL-4). stacked: the term above its value, for long values or long terms, and for facts in several columns. stat: the value first, as a large figure, with the term under it as its label — the few numbers a screen opens with. | | `columns` | `number` | `1` | `columns` | The most columns of facts the list draws in the stacked and stat layouts; it draws fewer while it is too narrow for that many (DSL-7), and never more than it has facts. An inline list is one column whatever this says. | | `density` | `enum`: `regular`, `compact` | `"regular"` | `density` | How close the facts are and how large their text is. Regular is for facts a person reads: a page, a card, a dialog. Compact (smaller text, half the space) is for facts a person scans: a side panel, an inspector, a card of many figures. A design system may add values. | | `separation` | `enum`: `auto`, `divider`, `gap` | `"auto"` | `separation` | How a fact is told from the fact below it. divider: one hairline between them. gap: empty space and no line. Auto takes comp.description-list.separation, the design system's answer (divider in the default system). | ### Item: `fact` One fact: a term, and the value or values that answer it. Names: Web `div`, SwiftUI `TanreiFact`, Jetpack Compose `fact`, Flutter `TanreiFact`, React Native `DescriptionList.Fact`. | Prop | Type | Default | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `term` | `string` | `""` | The fact's name, as short as it can be and without a colon ("Ships to"). In the stat layout it is the label under the figure ("orders this week"). | | Slot | Description | | --- | --- | | `term` | What the term holds in place of plain text: a tag that the value explains (a legend), inline code, text with a glyph. The list places it and styles nothing inside it (DSL-10). | ### Item: `value` One value of a fact: plain text, a component of the product's, or nothing. Names: Web `dd`, SwiftUI `TanreiFactValue`, Jetpack Compose `value`, Flutter `TanreiFactValue`, React Native `DescriptionList.Value`. | Slot | Description | | --- | --- | | `content` | What the value holds in place of plain text: a tag, a link, inline code, a button, a short list, any view of the product's. The list places it and styles nothing inside it (DSL-10). | ### Item: `tag` A tag placed in a value: the Tag component, as it is drawn anywhere else. It is a Tag. Names: Web `tanrei-tag`, SwiftUI `TanreiTag`, Jetpack Compose `TanreiTag`, Flutter `TanreiTag`, React Native `Tag`. | Prop | Type | Default | Web attribute | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `label` | `string` | `""` | `label` | The tag's text. | | `variant` | `enum`: `tonal`, `outlined`, `filled` | `"tonal"` | `variant` | The tag's look. | | `status` | `enum`: `default`, `info`, `warning`, `error`, `success` | `"default"` | `status` | What the tag reports. | | `size` | `enum`: `small`, `medium` | `"medium"` | `size` | The tag's size; small in a value, so that it does not make its line taller. | ### States `enabled` ### Accessibility - Role: `none` - Labeling: WAI-ARIA has no role for a description list as a whole, only for its parts (term, definition), so the component names none: on the web the product's own dl, dt and dd stay in the document and carry the structure; elsewhere each fact is one element read "term, value" (DSL-17). The list has no accessible name of its own: the heading above it says what the facts are about, as it does for a person who sees them. - Minimum target size: yes - Not interactive: the list, its facts, its terms and its values take no input and no focus (DSL-15), so there is no target to size. minimumTarget holds trivially. What is pressable inside a value — a link, a button, a copy button — meets the minimum target by its own spec and keeps its place in the focus order. - A description list is for the facts of one thing (WCAG 1.3.1): each term names what its value is. Several things that share the same names are a table, whose headers name columns; text that is read in order, with a term now and then, is prose, which sets a bare description list as running text (PRS-13). Do not use this component to place unrelated things side by side. - Every value has a term, and a term is a name, not a heading: it takes no heading role (DSL-17), so a screen reader's list of headings is not filled with "Size", "Owner" and "Date". A block of facts that needs a title gets a heading above it, which the product writes. - What is drawn first is not always what is read first: the stat layout draws the figure above its label and still exposes "orders this week, 1,284" (DSL-6). Both orders are a meaningful sequence (WCAG 1.3.2); the exposed one is the same in every layout, so that a person hears a list the same way wherever it is drawn. - An empty value is exposed as empty (DSL-11). Where the absence itself is information ("None", "Not set", "Unlimited"), write it as the value, in words: a dash is read as punctuation or not at all. - Meaning never rests on color. A figure is the surface's text color whatever it says; a change (up, down, better, worse) is a tag or text in the value whose words say the direction ("up 12 % since last week"), with a glyph if the product wants one, never a color alone (WCAG 1.4.1). - Reflow (WCAG 1.4.10) and enlarged text (1.4.4, 1.4.12): the list decides its layout from its own width, so the same rules that stack it in a narrow panel stack it at 200 % text and in a 320 wide window (DSL-4, DSL-7, DSL-21). Nothing is cut and nothing scrolls sideways; an unbreakable value is broken at the edge (DSL-8). - Contrast in the default system: a value is on-surface and a term on-surface-variant, each held to 4.5:1 on every surface and container step by the token invariants. The line between facts is decorative: facts are exposed without it. - A list does not announce a change of its facts (DSL-16). Where a change must be heard (a figure that updates while the person watches), the product puts the list, or the one fact, in a live region and decides how often it speaks. ### Behaviour Requirements in EARS form, each with its stable id. - **DSL-1** THE description list SHALL draw its facts in the order given, each fact a term and the value or values that answer it, as a block as wide as the layout gives it and as tall as its facts; it SHALL draw no fill, no edge, no corner and no elevation of its own, and SHALL bring no outer space of its own — no space above its first fact and none below its last — so that it is spaced by what holds it. - **DSL-2** THE description list SHALL set every term in comp.description-list.term.typescale.regular while density is regular and in comp.description-list.term.typescale.compact while density is compact, in comp.description-list.term.color, and every value in comp.description-list.value.typescale.regular or comp.description-list.value.typescale.compact by density, in comp.description-list.value.color, with digits in figures of equal width so that the numbers of a column of values line up; it SHALL NOT add a colon or any other mark of its own after a term, and SHALL NOT change the weight, the case or the family of what the product wrote. - **DSL-3** WHILE layout is inline THE description list SHALL draw one column of facts, and in each fact the term at the start and its values after it: every term in one term column, as wide as the widest term of the list set on one line, with no term wrapped or cut; every value in one value column that takes the rest of the list's width; and the two columns comp.description-list.term.gap.regular apart while density is regular and comp.description-list.term.gap.compact apart while density is compact. The first line of a term SHALL share its baseline with the first line of its first value. - **DSL-4** WHILE layout is inline and the value column of DSL-3 would be narrower than comp.description-list.column.min-width THE description list SHALL draw every fact as layout stacked draws it (DSL-5) — all of its facts together, never some of them — and SHALL return to the two columns when the room is there again; it SHALL decide this from its own width, not from the window's, SHALL change at once and without a motion, and SHALL change nothing that is exposed (DSL-17). - **DSL-5** WHILE layout is stacked THE description list SHALL draw in each fact the term on a line or lines of its own and its values below it after comp.description-list.stack.gap, both beginning at the start edge of the fact's column and no wider than it. - **DSL-6** WHILE layout is stat THE description list SHALL draw in each fact the first value first, as a figure: in comp.description-list.stat.value.typescale.regular while density is regular and comp.description-list.stat.value.typescale.compact while density is compact, in comp.description-list.value.color, with digits in figures of equal width, on one line wherever the fact's column holds it; and the term below the figure after comp.description-list.stack.gap, in the term's own style and color (DSL-2), both beginning at the start edge of the fact's column. It SHALL set the figure's letter-spacing by the script of its text, as every title is set (PRS-20): no negative letter-spacing WHERE its language is Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and none WHERE its script joins its letters or stacks marks on them. THE description list SHALL still expose the term before its value (DSL-17): the order it draws changes nothing that is read. - **DSL-7** WHILE layout is stacked or stat THE description list SHALL lay its facts out in columns of equal width, comp.description-list.column.gap apart, filled row by row in reading order from the start edge, the facts of a row beginning at one top edge: as many columns as the least of columns, the number of its facts, and the number of columns at least comp.description-list.column.min-width wide that its own width holds, and never fewer than one; WHEN its width changes it SHALL lay its facts out again at once, without a motion. WHILE layout is inline and columns is greater than 1 THE description list SHALL draw one column and in debug builds report that an inline list has one. IF columns is less than 1 or not a whole number THE description list SHALL draw one column and in debug builds report the value. - **DSL-8** THE description list SHALL wrap the text of a value inside its column, and of a term wherever DSL-5 or DSL-6 places it, breaking lines by the rules of the text's language, and SHALL never cut it or end it with an ellipsis; a run with no break opportunity that is wider than its column (an identifier, an address) SHALL be broken where it meets the column's edge rather than be cut or reach outside the list. - **DSL-9** WHERE a fact has more than one value THE description list SHALL draw each value on a line or lines of its own below the one before it, comp.description-list.stack.gap apart, in the order given, where the layout places a value: in the value column while the term sits beside it, under the term while it is stacked. WHILE layout is stat only the first value SHALL be the figure of DSL-6; those after it SHALL be drawn below the term, after comp.description-list.stack.gap, in the value's own style (DSL-2). - **DSL-10** WHERE a term or a value holds a component or any content of the product's that is not plain text — a tag, a link, inline code, a button, a short list — THE description list SHALL place it where the text would begin, on the first line, SHALL add nothing to it and style nothing inside it, and SHALL let pointer, touch and keyboard input reach it as it would outside the list, in the reading order of the facts. - **DSL-11** WHERE a fact has a term and no value, or a value with no content, THE description list SHALL draw the term, keep the value's place and one line of its height so that the fact stays in step with the others, expose the fact with an empty value, and SHALL NOT put a dash, a word or any other mark of its own in it. IF a fact has no term THE description list SHALL draw its values where they would be and in debug builds report that a value has no term. IF the list has no facts THE description list SHALL draw nothing, take no space and expose nothing. - **DSL-12** WHILE the list's separation is divider (DSL-13) THE description list SHALL draw one line of comp.description-list.divider.thickness in comp.description-list.divider.color above every fact that is not in its first row, as wide as that fact's column — the whole width of the list where it draws one column, a term and its value under one line — and SHALL leave comp.description-list.fact.gap.regular between the line and the content on each side of it while density is regular, and comp.description-list.fact.gap.compact while density is compact, the line taking no room of its own; it SHALL draw no line above the first row or below the last, and none between two columns or between a term and its value. - **DSL-13** THE description list SHALL tell a fact from the fact below it as its separation names: WHILE separation is auto, as comp.description-list.separation names, which follows sys.behavior.separation unless a design system sets it apart; WHILE separation is divider or gap, as that value names, whatever the tokens say; divider draws the lines of DSL-12 and gap leaves the space of DSL-14. WHEN separation, or the token it follows, changes THE description list SHALL draw the other form at once, without animation; WHEN separation names a value the description list does not define THE description list SHALL treat it as auto and in debug builds report the unknown value. A platform that cannot draw a choice SHALL fall back to the first value, divider, and state that in its README. - **DSL-14** WHILE the list's separation is gap (DSL-13) THE description list SHALL leave comp.description-list.fact.gap.regular of empty space while density is regular, and comp.description-list.fact.gap.compact while density is compact, between every fact and the fact below it, SHALL draw none of the lines of DSL-12, and SHALL leave no such space above the first row or below the last; the facts SHALL stay exposed as facts (DSL-17). - **DSL-15** THE description list, its facts, its terms and its values SHALL NOT take pointer, touch or keyboard input of their own, SHALL NOT take focus or be a stop in the focus order, and SHALL NOT change anything they draw under a pointer, a press or focus: a fact has no hovered, focused, pressed, selected or disabled state, draws no state layer and no focus indicator, and the list emits no event. - **DSL-16** WHEN the facts, a term or a value change THE description list SHALL draw the new content at once, without a motion, lay itself out again where a width changed with it (DSL-3, DSL-4, DSL-7), and SHALL NOT announce the change by itself. - **DSL-17** THE description list SHALL be exposed to assistive technology as terms each followed by the value or values that answer it, every value associated with its term, in the order given: on a platform that has the semantics of a description list, as that structure; on a platform that has none, each fact as one element whose text is the term followed by its values, set apart so that they are read as separate phrases ("Category, Actions"), with whatever inside the fact takes input still reached as an element of its own. The layout, the number of columns, the density, the separation and the order DSL-6 draws SHALL change nothing that is exposed; THE description list SHALL give a term no heading role and itself no name. - **DSL-18** THE description list SHALL take its layout direction from where it is used — the direction of the nearest ancestor that sets one, and the platform's own where none does — and SHALL have no direction setting of its own; WHEN that direction changes while the description list is shown THE description list SHALL draw itself for the new direction at once, without a motion of its own, keeping what it shows. - **DSL-19** WHERE the layout direction is right-to-left THE description list SHALL place the term column at the right and the value column at its left, begin every term and every value at the right edge of its column, fill its columns of facts from the right, and apply every gap by logical start and end. It draws no glyph of its own, so nothing in it is mirrored but its order. - **DSL-20** THE description list SHALL lay out the text of each term and of each value as text of its own direction, isolated from the text beside it: it takes the base direction of its first strong character, or the layout direction where it has none, so that a left-to-right name, an identifier, a number with its sign, unit or currency, a version, an address and a date keep their own order in a right-to-left layout and reorder nothing beside them; THE description list SHALL place that text and align its lines by the layout direction, not by the text's own, and SHALL NOT reverse the digits of a number. - **DSL-21** WHILE the text size is enlarged THE description list SHALL grow every text style with it, keep its gaps and its lines, take comp.description-list.column.min-width as grown by the same factor, and lay itself out again by DSL-3, DSL-4 and DSL-7, so that an inline list draws its terms above their values and a list in columns draws fewer of them where the larger text no longer fits; it SHALL cut no content, SHALL set no fixed height on a fact, SHALL lose no content when the reader raises line height, paragraph spacing, letter spacing or word spacing, and SHALL need no sideways scrolling at a width of 320 points with text at 200 %. - **DSL-22** WHERE the platform draws with a person's own forced colors (the web's forced-colors mode, and a platform's equivalent where it has one) THE description list SHALL draw the lines of DSL-12 in the platform's text color and its terms and values in that color, a term still told from its value by its text style and its place; it draws no fill, so nothing else changes. - **DSL-23** WHEN density names a value that the active design system does not have, or layout names a value this spec does not have, THE description list SHALL render with the default value (the default density's tokens, layout inline), and in debug builds report the unknown value. - **DSL-24** WHEN its inline size changes THE description list SHALL choose between terms beside and above their values again from the new size. ### Tokens As written in the token documents (DTCG): an alias in braces names the token it takes its value from, which each design system resolves. On the web each token is a CSS custom property: `--tanrei` and the name after `tanrei`, joined by hyphens (`tanrei.comp.description-list.…` → `--tanrei-comp-description-list-…`). #### `tanrei.comp.description-list` | Token | Type | Value | | --- | --- | --- | | `comp.description-list.separation` | `number` | `{tanrei.sys.behavior.separation}` | | `comp.description-list.divider.color` | `color` | `{tanrei.sys.color.outline-variant}` | | `comp.description-list.divider.thickness` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.border.hairline}` | | `comp.description-list.fact.gap.regular` | `dimension` | `12px` | | `comp.description-list.fact.gap.compact` | `dimension` | `6px` | | `comp.description-list.term.gap.regular` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space200}` | | `comp.description-list.term.gap.compact` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space100}` | | `comp.description-list.term.color` | `color` | `{tanrei.sys.color.on-surface-variant}` | | `comp.description-list.term.typescale.regular` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.label}` | | `comp.description-list.term.typescale.compact` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.label-small}` | | `comp.description-list.stack.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space50}` | | `comp.description-list.column.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space400}` | | `comp.description-list.column.min-width` | `dimension` | `144px` | | `comp.description-list.value.color` | `color` | `{tanrei.sys.color.on-surface}` | | `comp.description-list.value.typescale.regular` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.body}` | | `comp.description-list.value.typescale.compact` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.body-small}` | | `comp.description-list.stat.value.typescale.regular` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.heading-1}` | | `comp.description-list.stat.value.typescale.compact` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.heading-3}` | ## Guidelines ### Is it a description list - Use it for the facts of **one** thing. Several things that share the same names are a [table](https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/table/), whose headers name columns. - Text that explains words, read in order among paragraphs, is prose: leave it a bare `
` in your content. Prose sets it as running text, with the term standing out. This component is the laid-out form of the same list, with the value standing out. - A list a person picks from or presses is a [list](https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/list/). ### How it fits The list decides everything from its own width, never the window’s. The same list is right in a page, a card, a side panel and a dialog. - **Inline stacks by itself.** When the values would be left less than 144 beside the widest term, every fact is drawn with its term above its value, all of them together, and returns to two columns when there is room. It decides again whenever its width changes, also a list that was first laid out with no width, in a panel or a tab that was not shown yet. Do not switch the layout for a small window yourself. - **Columns reduce by themselves.** `columns` is the most columns the stacked and stat layouts draw. Each column is at least 144 wide, so four figures are four columns in a wide page, two and two in a narrow one and one column on a phone. A list never draws more columns than it has facts. - **An inline list is one column.** `columns` has no effect on it. - **Nothing is cut.** Values wrap. An identifier or an address that cannot break is broken at the column’s edge. The list never scrolls sideways. ### Density | `density` | Term and value | Between facts | Use for | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `regular` (default) | 14 on a line height of 20, and 14 on 22 | 12; with a line, 12 on each side of it | Facts a person reads: a page, a card, a dialog. | | `compact` | 12 on 16, and 13 on 20 | 6; with a line, 6 on each side of it | Facts a person scans: a side panel, an inspector. | The stat figure is 32 on 40 at `regular` and 20 on 28 at `compact`. ### Telling facts apart | `separation` | Draws | | --- | --- | | `auto` (default) | What the design system chose: a hairline in the default system. | | `divider` | One hairline between a fact and the fact below it. | | `gap` | Empty space and no line. | There is no line above the first row, below the last, between two columns or between a term and its value. A framed list is a list in an outlined [card](https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/card/). ### Do - Keep a term as short as it can be: “Ships to”, not “The address this order ships to”. - Write an absence in words where it is information: “None”, “Not set”, “Unlimited”. - Say a change in words: “up 12% since last week” as a second value under a figure. - Use a small tag (`size="small"`) for a status in a value, so that it does not make its line taller. ### Don’t - Don’t put a colon after a term. Punctuation belongs to the language, and the term is already told from its value by style and place. - Don’t put a dash in an empty value. Leave it empty, or write the absence. - Don’t color a figure to say that it is good or bad. A direction is a word, or a tag whose label says it. - Don’t use the list to place unrelated things side by side. That is a layout. ## Accessibility ### What the component handles - The native list stays a description list: terms and their definitions are the browser’s own, in every layout, at either density, with or without lines. - The order that is read never changes. The stat layout draws the figure above its label and still exposes the term first. - Nothing in the list takes focus or input. A link or a button inside a value keeps its own target and its place in the focus order. - At 200% text and in a 320 wide window the same width rules stack the list and reduce its columns. The least width grows with the text. - In a right-to-left layout the term column is at the right and columns fill from the right. Each term and value keeps its own direction, so a version, an address and an amount are never reversed. - In forced colors the lines and the text are the text color. The list has no fill to lose. - A value with no term, `columns` on an inline list, a number of columns that is not whole, the stat layout or columns on a list without groups, and an unknown layout, density or separation are reported in debug builds. ### What you need to do - Put a heading above the list that says what the facts are about. The list has no name of its own, and a term is never a heading. - Give every value a term. - Where a figure changes while a person watches and the change must be heard, put the list or the one fact in a live region of your own. The list does not announce changes.