Tooltips and Toasts
Tooltips reveal contextual information about an element when a user hovers over that element. To learn more, see Tooltip.
Toasts contain updates or messages about the status of an application’s process. To learn more, see Toast.
Follow these guidelines for both tooltips and toasts:
- Keep tooltips and toasts brief. Try to keep them to a single line, if possible.
- Use sentence case.
- Use the past tense rather than present perfect (was submitted vs. has been submitted). We avoid the past perfect tense because it is less clear for users and for our translation team.
- Don’t include periods at the end of a tooltip or toast unless it is a complete sentence or a fragment followed by a complete sentence.
Do
- Expense submitted
- Your expense was submitted.
- Filter data
Don’t
- Your expense submission has been submitted
- Expense Submission Executed.
- Filter Data.
Pairing Tooltips with Icons
For tooltips, consider the element the tooltip is paired with, and how you might add context to it. For example, pair “Add Item” with a Plus icon or “Close” with an X icon to keep tooltip text concise but clear.
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