Tooltip

A short hint on hover or focus.

Left out of Accessible first Icons never stand alone here, so no control needs a hover hint. Touch screens never hover, and optional help sits in a section a person can open. Use instead: Collapsible, Label

See it live

Start Storybook to see it live: npm run storybook

Live from StorybookOpen Tooltip in StorybookSee it in dark

When to use it

• Use it when: A brief name or hint for a control that already has an accessible name.
• Not when: The only place values or important words live, or touch screens, where hover never happens.

Instead:

• Popover: Opens on click and works on touch.
• Hover card: A richer preview.

How Accessible first uses it

An icon with no label

Use Not used: always add a word

Not An icon button

Icons alone are guesswork.

Words

• Use common words. Explain any term you must use.
• One idea per sentence. Put the action first.
• Never blame the person.
• Use: Continue, Change, Start, You. Avoid: Invalid, Utilise, Submit, Error code.

The labels components use, from the voice tokens:

• content.action.commit: Continue
• content.action.cancel: Go back
• content.action.destroy: Delete
• content.action.retry: Try again
• content.action.empty-action: Start a new application

See Voice and tone for the whole voice.

Accessibility and keyboard

Keyboard	What happens	Not
undefined	Escape hides it.	undefined

Test before you ship:

• It describes its trigger and also shows on keyboard focus. undefined

Use it in code

npx open-ds add tooltip

The component reads only component keys and semantic tokens, so it follows the brand and mode on <html>.

Tokens it reads

Tooltip reads 7 tokens of its own, each an alias of a semantic token. Each row is one part: its own token, the semantic it aliases, and the value it ends at. Change a semantic and every component that reads it follows; override one of Tooltip's tokens to change Tooltip alone.

Changes with theme

Accessible first decides what changes when you switch theme. Here a switch changes colors only, so the marked rows differ between light and dark; everything else holds steady.

Part	Its token and the semantic it aliases	Value
Tooltip
Fill Changes with theme	component.tooltip.backgroundcolor.surface.inversevar(--tooltip-background)	Lightgray.light.900:#141414Darkgray.dark.900:#F7F7F7
Text Changes with theme	component.tooltip.labelcolor.text.inversevar(--tooltip-label)	Lightgray.light.0:#FFFFFFDarkgray.light.900:#141414
Content
Corner	component.tooltip.content.radiusradius.badgevar(--tooltip-content-radius)	radius.4:0.25rem
Padding, left and right	component.tooltip.content.padding-xspace.gap.defaultvar(--tooltip-content-padding-x)	space.16:1rem
Padding, top and bottom	component.tooltip.content.padding-ycomponent-spacing-map.x1var(--tooltip-content-padding-y)	space.4:0.25rem
Text size	component.tooltip.content.font-sizetype.caption.font-sizevar(--tooltip-content-font-size)	font.size.16:1rem
Font family	component.tooltip.content.font-familytype.caption.font-familyvar(--tooltip-content-font-family)	font.family.atkinson-hyperlegible:"Atkinson Hyperlegible", Verdana, sans-serif