This guide summarizes best practices for accessible tooltips, drawing from leading accessibility experts.
Understanding Tooltips
Tooltips offer brief text hints for UI elements, appearing on hover or focus. A concise definition: a non-modal overlay providing supplemental, descriptive text about a UI control. Crucially, accessible tooltips contain only descriptive text and no interactive elements. If interactivity is needed, use a dialog instead.
Two Tooltip Types
Tooltips serve two main purposes:
-
Icon Labeling: For brief labels (one or two words), use the
aria-labelledby
attribute. For additional context (e.g., a notification count), provide a space-separated list of IDs.<button aria-labelledby="notification-count notification-label"> <span id="notification-count">3</span> <span id="notification-label">Notifications</span> </button> <div role="tooltip" id="tooltip-label">Notifications</div>
-
Contextual Description: For longer descriptions, use
aria-describedby
. The icon itself needs an accessible name, ideally included as hidden text within the element.<button aria-describedby="tooltip-description"> <span style="display:none;">Notifications</span> <span aria-hidden="true">?</span> </button> <div role="tooltip" id="tooltip-description">View and manage notification settings</div>
Essential Do's and Don'ts
Do:
- Use
aria-labelledby
oraria-describedby
appropriately. - Employ the
role="tooltip"
even if current screen reader support is limited; future support may improve. - Open on mouseover/focus, close on mouseout/blur.
- Prevent tooltip dismissal when hovering over its content.
- Enable keyboard closure via the Escape key (WCAG 1.4.13).
Don't:
- Use the
title
attribute (it has significant accessibility issues). - Use
aria-haspopup
withrole="tooltip"
(tooltips are non-interactive). - Place essential content within tooltips; screen readers might ignore associated ARIA attributes.
Limitations and Alternatives
Tooltips are inherently inaccessible to touch devices due to the lack of hover and focus. The best solution is often to integrate the label or description directly into the design. For extensive content (including interactive elements), consider a Toggletip or a <dialog></dialog>
element. Toggletips, often indicated by an "i" icon, reveal information within a live region using the role="status"
.
<button aria-controls="toggletip-content"> <span aria-hidden="true">?</span> </button> <div id="toggletip-content" role="status" aria-live="assertive" style="display:none;">This clarifies whatever needs clarifying</div>
For more on toggletips, refer to the resources below.
Further Reading
- Clarifying the Relationship Between Popovers and Dialogs (Zell Liew)
- Tooltips and Toggletips (Inclusive Components)
- Tooltips in the time of WCAG 2.1 (Sarah Higley)
- Short note on aria-label, aria-labelledby, and aria-describedby (Léonie Watson)
- Some Hands-On with the HTML Dialog Element (Chris Coyier)
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