aria-practices
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w3c
Draft tooltip design pattern
The tooltip design pattern is at: http://w3c.github.io/aria-practices/#tooltip
It is largely complete. Things to fix include:
- [x] Redundant wording and incomplete sentences in the description.
- [x] The keyboard section needs revisions to bring it inline with APG editorial requirements.
- [x] The states and properties section needs revisions to bring it inline with APG editorial requirements.
- [x] Remove external links from example section. page.
Open questions:
- [ ] Should there be any guidance about using tooltip verses title attribute.
- [ ] The introduction links to the non-modal dialog section. Should that instead be to the tooltip dialog pattern called for by issue #85?
@wendyabc, do you have some specific issues in mind that such guidance should address?
This may already be in hand, but the current wording of the keyboard interactions reads as slightly ambiguous to me:
A tooltip is a popup that displays information related to an element when the element receives keyboard focus or the mouse hovers over it. It typically appears after a small delay and disappears when Escape is pressed or on mouse out. ... If the tooltip is invoked when the trigger element receives focus, then it is dismissed when it no longer has focus (onBlur). If the tooltip is invoked with mouseIn, then it is dismissed with on mouseOut.
Should pressing Escape always dismiss the tooltip, or only dismiss the tooltip if it was invoked when the trigger element received focus?
Yes, please link to the tooltip dialog pattern rather than the non-modal dialog section.
Regarding tooltip vs title: at present, I am not aware of any way for a sighted keyboard-only user to see the content of the title attribute (unless they are using an AT). So, one advantage of using a tooltip is that the tooltip can be displayed for keyboard users, either by:
- automatically opening the tooltip when the element receives focus, or
- providing a keyboard shortcut, such as F1 or Shift+F1, or maybe F2 to open the tooltip for the focused element
The advantage of automatically opening the tooltip when the element receives focus is that this makes the tooltip very discoverable for keyboard users, but the (big) disadvantage is that keyboard power users very quickly become tired of them, even when there is a delay.
The (big) advantage of providing a keyboard shortcut to open the tooltip is that users can choose when they want more information. The disadvantages are:
- discoverability of the keystroke that will open the tooltip (standardization would really help here, but this info can be provided along with other accessibility tips and settings for the site)
- the developer needs to provide a visual affordance that there is a tooltip available for an element (note that AT users would not need an affordance, because the tooltip pattern explicitly requires the use of aria-describedby, which would count as the affordance in this case)
The first sentence of the tooltip pattern is: "A tooltip is a popup that displays information related to an element when the element receives keyboard focus or the mouse hovers over it." The previous comment discusses 2 ways that a tooltip can be displayed for keyboard users:
- automatically opening the tooltip when the element receives focus, or
- providing a keyboard shortcut, such as F1, Shift+F1, or F2, to open the tooltip for the focused element
So I think we should change that first sentence to something more like the following: "A tooltip is a popup that displays information related to an element when the element receives keyboard focus or the mouse hovers over it, or when a focused element receives a specific keyboard shortcut to display the tooltip."
What exactly is the point of having esc close the tooltip if it appears on hover/focus? As it would close when the control that invoked it is no longer hovered or focused (as mentioned in the note under keyboard interaction).
Regarding having ESC close the tooltip, if a tooltip is shown (and focused) when the user types a keyboard shortcut (such as F1, Shift+F1, or F2), then ESC can be used to hide it.
Alternatively, perhaps any Tooltip that is optionally shown/focused on a keyboard shortcut falls under the jurisdiction of the Tooltip dialog pattern (issue #85), even if it only contains text?
Having ESC close the tooltip allows you to close it if it is distracting. For example, if there were a really big tooltip attached to something which obscures some other information you may want to see when filling in a form field.
On Tue, 23 May 2017 at 07:53 Carolyn MacLeod [email protected] wrote:
Regarding having ESC close the tooltip https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices/issues/128#issuecomment-299854925, if a tooltip is shown (and focused) when the user types a keyboard shortcut (such as F1 or F2), then ESC can be used to hide it.
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Having ESC close the tooltip allows you to close it if it is distracting. For example, if there were a really big tooltip attached to something which obscures some other information you may want to see when filling in a form field.
Agreed that that would be a nice thing to have. Note that the ESC key would go to the trigger element in that case, and not the tooltip, because according to the spec, "Tooltip widgets do not receive focus."
The below note seems to violate a success criterion being proposed for WCAG 2.1:
If the tooltip is invoked when the trigger element receives focus, then it is dismissed when it no longer has focus (onBlur). If the tooltip is invoked with mouseIn, then it is dismissed with on mouseOut.
See w3c/wcag21#75. There are accessibility reasons for the tooltip to persist while the tooltip itself has mouse hover.
The disadvantages are: discoverability of the keystroke that will open the tooltip (standardization would really help here, but this info can be provided along with other accessibility tips and settings for the site)
The above would be true where an item of content must be clicked on by mouse users to reveal the tooltip text; here the keyboard user would need an F1 or similar shortcut as suggested.
But most tooltips I see involve a separate button beside the content, usually with an icon on them such as a ? character, or an I for information, or even the word Help. Depending on what interactivity the designers have chosen the keyboard user either focusses on it using the Tab key to reveal the tooltip, or they must press Enter or spacebar to reveal it. This kind of tooltip should be allowed for in this SC (I believe they can still be considered tooltips, as they perform the same function and behave the same way, they are just tooltips on the dedicated button instead of on the content itself).
These cases use the
Our use case is a code editor. Users can open a tooltip anywhere in the editor, to show the comment for a method or variable, the detailed text of a compiler error or warning, the details of a breakpoint for the current line, etc. Mouse users can see these tooltips by simply hovering over the function/variable name, error/warning indicator, or breakpoint annotation. Keyboard users need to navigate to the "trigger location" using the arrow keys, and then they can optionally open the tooltip by pressing F2.
Note that the editor itself is the "trigger element", but it has focus the whole time, so focusIn cannot trigger the tooltip(s). It is the caret location that determines which tooltip is shown. It does not make sense to open them automatically when the caret reaches the intended trigger location because that gets incredibly annoying.
If you are familiar at all with the Eclipse IDE, this is the way their code editor works. We used the same technique in our code editor because our Web IDE (Orion) was mostly written by Eclipse devs. :)
An additional "quirk" of this technique is that a mouse user can hover to open a tooltip, and then, if they want it to take focus for whatever reason (some of the tooltips have buttons or links in them, which can be activated with keyboard or mouse), they simply type F2 and we give the tooltip focus. Esc closes it.
One could argue that these are "dialog tooltips" and not "tooltips", or maybe they are a different beast altogether, but the typical mouse experience feels exactly like a tooltip, so we tried to keep the keyboard experience as close as possible.
I could imagine an map or some other complex visualization working in a similar manner - the map has focus, the keyboard user navigates with arrow keys, and any time they want more info on the current location, they type F2 to get a tooltip.
the title attributes sets the "aria-labelledby", not "aria-describedby", right?
So is there cases for tooltips when aria-labelledby should be used - like for a "toolbar button" (icon+tooltip) ?
I would like to see guidance about whether elements with role=tooltip are intended to contain text-only content, i.e. functionally equivalent to the title attribute.
I would like to see guidance about whether elements with role=tooltip are intended to contain text-only content, i.e. functionally equivalent to the title attribute.
I believe the tooltip pattern is intended to contain text-only content, and the tooltip dialog pattern is intended for tooltips with interactive children.
@mcking65 can correct me if I am wrong. If this is correct, then yes, it should be explicitly stated in the pattern doc.
Please see #85 for discussion on the tooltip dialog pattern.
I believe the tooltip pattern is intended to contain text-only content, and the tooltip dialog pattern is intended for tooltips with interactive children.
Thanks @carmacleod! What about formatted text, e.g. bold or italics? Is the differentiating factor "interactivity", or is it closer to "anything that's not a plain string"?
@craigkovatch Interactivity is the defining factor. Custom tooltips can contain bold, italics, underline, an icon, whatever, as long as you make sure to put the text equivalent of all the stuff in an aria-describedby on the trigger element.
As soon as you add a button or a link or some other interactive thing, then you need to be marking up a "tooltip dialog".
i'd suggest, nonetheless, that you should avoid putting complex structured text content (e.g. with headings, bullet lists, etc) in a tooltip, as this will all be announced "in a oner" by AT if it's just associated via aria-describedby. so for anything mildly complex/structured, it'd be best for authors to go for a dialog-style tooltip with an explicit close control, i'd say.
Excellent point @patrickhlauke. Agree completely. We'll want that advice added as a note in the tooltip pattern doc. :)
So is there cases for tooltips when aria-labelledby should be used - like for a "toolbar button" (icon+tooltip) ?
Good point @Yaffle. A "toolbar button" (or any icon that does not have a visible label) does need a label.
The author can use aria-label or aria-labelledby, or alt if they're using an <img>, or even title, to give the icon its label.
The author would also want to give the icon a tooltip (using either title or a custom tooltip) so that sighted folks can figure out what the icon is.
So if the tooltip text and the label are the same (which would be the typical case), then I would think that yes, you would use aria-labelledby to point to the custom tooltip text instead of aria-describedby.
Having modal tooltip just to display links to more info is a bit harsh. We have tooltips icons inside the input visually (kinda like X button to clear input) — how would I go about tooltips with links? Moving focus from input to tooltip for links and locking it there is clearly not an option.
@mcking65, regarding the item in the opening comment: "Should there be any guidance about using tooltip verses title attribute", I think the answer is "yes, definitely". :)
This Warning in the W3C HTML spec for title attribute has some useful words:
Warning! Relying on the title attribute is currently discouraged as many user agents do not expose the attribute in an accessible manner as required by this specification (e.g., requiring a pointing device, such as a mouse, to cause a tooltip to appear excludes keyboard-only users and touch-only users, such as anyone with a modern phone or tablet).
@waterplea, I just noticed your question:
how would I go about tooltips with links? Moving focus from input to tooltip for links and locking it there is clearly not an option.
Did you find a solution? I don't know of another way to give a keyboard user access to multiple links in a tooltip (which doesn't mean there isn't another way - just that I don't know of one). If your tooltips only contain one link, then perhaps a shortcut key (maybe Shift+F1?) could follow the link without focusing the tooltip. Not sure how natural that would feel.
Are you familiar with the Eclipse IDE? The java code editor has javadoc tooltips that can contain links. A keyboard user would navigate to the java element they wanted javadoc for, then press the F2 key to open and focus the tooltip. Then they can scroll using arrow keys, or tab to the links. They need to type Escape to close the tooltip. In the screenshot below, the user navigated to the FileReader class, and pressed F2 to see its javadoc. In Eclipse, this feels pretty natural. Definitely a "tooltip dialog", though, and not "just a tooltip", although mouse users don't notice the difference. ;)
@carmacleod I ended up implementing shifting focus to the first link by arrow down and then regular Tab/Shift Tab to move over links and out of the tooltip to next/previous focusable element on the page.
A couple of years ago, @guyhickling wrote:
But most tooltips I see involve a separate button beside the content, usually with an icon on them such as a ? character, or an I for information, or even the word Help. Depending on what interactivity the designers have chosen the keyboard user either focusses on it using the Tab key to reveal the tooltip, or they must press Enter or spacebar to reveal it. This kind of tooltip should be allowed for in this SC (I believe they can still be considered tooltips, as they perform the same function and behave the same way, they are just tooltips on the dedicated button instead of on the content itself).
We're assessing a library and found a number of components all called tooltip, one of which provides this kind of interaction on activation. To me, this isn't a tooltip; it's a button whose sole role is to provide 'additional information/context on demand'.
Yes, that sounds like a tooltip, but I think there are some distinguishing matters:
- a tooltip does not require conventional onclick activation of the trigger (in fact since the trigger is typically an interactive control, clicking it isn't an option since that will call its primary function)
- a tooltip is typically a secondary piece of information about the trigger
Your text has wording covered much of this with:
displays information related to an element when the element receives keyboard focus or the mouse hovers over it.
You'll note that the help icon is different.
- the 'typical' help icon requires activation in order to display (and in the use case where it also works on hover, it will still accept activation)
- the 'typical' help icon has no secondary purpose. It's only purpose is to display contextual information about a neighbouring element (or interaction)
I'd like to see you add a paragraph to the Tooltip Widget section that clarifies the difference, reading something like:
A tooltip does not require onclick activation of the trigger in order for the tip to be displayed. Such behaviour can be offered via a help icon. A help icon provides onclick context for another element, and is made by using a button with aria-haspopup set to true.
Likewise, another of the 'tooltips' in this library we're exploring is interactive. It is a Frankensteinian assembly allowing any manner of inputs inside. I think the final paragraph somewhat addresses this, but it could use some wordsmithing to something like:
The popup information in a tooltip widget does not receive focus. Where interaction in the revealed information is required, a non-modal dialog can be used to display additional information that contains focusable elements.
Another suggested modification. Change:
It typically appears after a small delay and disappears when Escape is pressed or on mouse out.
to
It typically appears after a small delay and disappears when the trigger loses keyboard focus or the Escape is pressed, or on mouse out.
I also wondered if "on mouse out" entirely matches the scenario covered by the new https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/content-on-hover-or-focus.html.
Not sure if this is the place for discussions, but I'm wondering how a tooltip is supposed to work when the triggering element is an a disabled state. According to https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/#kbd_disabled_controls is depends in the context where the Tooltip + triggering element is being used. Does that still hold strongly or do you think it's supposed to behave in a different way?
From the docs it's a bit unclear what the behavior should be. If it should work like https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/#kbd_disabled_controls, it could be useful to add some link (just like in the tree view section) to highlight it depends on the context of the usage.
Tooltips are still confusing. As a developer I don't feel I can use them:
- touchscreen users... can only click() the things (I'm ignoring expensive touchscreens with "hover" capabilities for now. None of my budget phones can do that kind of magic). So the tooltip-triggers (must?) also Do Stuff on click(). Like a button. Same with speech-rec unless we expect people to painfully MouseGrid all over pages (srsly?).
- Differences between a control with a tooltip vs a non-control (?) with a tooltip (and again how do the latter meet my first point?). I think people are converging on clear guidance between the two, but I'd like that guidance to mention word limits or something. Some things just have a buttload of text and maybe it's more than "just" poor UX but actively making things unusable for certain populations.
- Coachmarks (tutorial-style intro thingies which look like tooltips, may have interactives inside (often Next buttons or Ok, Got It! links), and are like onLoad() popup modal dialogs in that there's no trigger. What are coachmarks? non-modal dialogs? tooltips? something else? I was first confronted with these things at a job with "hey we have these things, tell us how to make them accessible." uhhh... Again, I'm not sure if they belong under tooltip guidance or something else, but I never solved that problem. I've since seen them on practically every dashboard I've audited.
- Anything that shows stuff (esp possibly lots of stuff) on focus or hover which then has
aria-whateveredbymeans anyone using text-to-speech loses the whole purpose of these things: I mean, the tooltip text wasn't sitting out in the open for all to view for a reason. Clean interface? Only deluge users with "helpful" text when they request it (coga reasons)? But keyboarders don't really choose to reveal the text, as the trigger is in the Tab order, and text-to-speech users would basically hear all the blah-blah-blah the moment they encounter the trigger (this might be one place where not hearing aria-foo when in a browse mode makes things nicer but apparently this depends on the SR and isn't codified anywhere?). If the purpose of the thing is lost and the main benefactors are mouse/pointer users, then should the whole idea be rethought? Should it be considered an anti-pattern liketitleattributes, and all show-text thingies should require a click (and therefore always be a control)? Going through a toolbar of an application and the name of every button is a whole 2-sentence instruction on how to use the button and what it does is a pain in the butt (even taking in that people can skip stuff and if the instructions are an accessible-description then it doesn't pollute name lists). On the other hand, a complex interface may mean users need to re-ask what the 2-sentence instruction is. Is it not ideal that this happens at the user's request? Tooltips offer this "user requests" to non-magnified pointer users, but kinda not anyone else.
There's also an idea I've had: we talk about offering Esc for users to get rid of pop-anythings whether triggered by hover or focus. Something I've wanted as I trigger popups left and right on interfaces littered with them (like Twitter) while zoomed way way in is the ability to click the actual tooltip/pop-anything itself to make it vanish. For tooltips without any controls inside, this could satisfy the "close without moving the pointer" without requiring the keyboard.
