Examples

The Tooltip component can render a variety of content ranging from short descriptive text, to paragraphs with links, or more complex interactive popovers.

The component provides a variety of props to configure tooltip behavior for these different use cases (i.e. interactive, dialog), and to customize styling (i.e. offset, maxWidth, className). The element that triggers a Tooltip can also be fully customized via props (i.e. triggerComponent, triggerContent).

This component makes use of @popperjs/core for tooltip positioning, focus-trap-react for trapping focus in Tooltip Dialogs, and react-transition-group for animations.

Icon Trigger

Inline

Interactive content

With Close

Code

React

See Storybook "Tooltip" page for React documentation.

Style customization

The following CSS variables can be overridden to customize Tooltip fields:

Guidance

When to use

• Use for helpful, non-critical information to strengthen an existing message.
• Use to increase certainty and enhance confidence about an interaction.
• Use with brief descriptions as tooltips perform best with succinct text.
• Tooltips are useful as a last resort for space-constrained UI. Explore other options for keeping content visible without a tooltip.

When to consider alternatives

• Don’t hide information necessary for completing a task behind a tooltip interaction.
• Tooltips are microcopy and should be brief. Don't use a tooltip if you need a lot of text.
• Don’t use a tooltip when its content is repetitive or if usability is obvious.
• If content can fit outside a tooltip, don't use a tooltip.

Component maturity