Tooltips give additional information about the UI element that triggers it, helping the user with progressive complexity as they need it. Below are some tooltip common use cases to consider.
Consider that both new and experienced users may use the feature. While some functionality may be obvious to experienced users, new users may need more guidance. Use tooltips to give guidance.
When the UI is resized or on smaller screen sizes, text may be cut off. Use tooltips to allow the user to access the full string without resizing their UI. See the Unity Standard on truncated text (work-in-progress) ->
A new user, a user using a screen reader, or a user that uses an icon-heavy interface regularly may not know what the icon may represent. Use tooltips to assign a label to the icon.
The tooltip for the icon should always include the label/name, for example: Print tool: Print this page.
See the Unity Standard on alt text (work-in-progress) ->
When UI is disabled, a user cannot interact with it and may not know why it is disabled. Use tooltips to provide an explanation for why the UI is disabled, and how they may enable it. See the Unity Standard on disabled UI ->
Users may not know that a keyboard shortcut exists for some tools. Use tooltips to encourage the use of keyboard shortcuts in context. See the Unity Standard on action shortcuts ->
Use tooltips when displaying contextual information that is not vital to the user’s workflow, as it is only accessible if a user hovers over the relevant UI. As tooltips are hidden by default, prioritize tooltips over informational (log) messages in help boxes to avoid cluttering the UI when communicating non-critical information.
Use informational (log) messages when it is important for a user to discover helpful advice that is not essential to the operation, but that they may not discover it if it is hidden in a tooltip.
Do not use tooltips to indicate when the function will complete an action but may return results that are not what the user intended. Use a warning message instead.
Do not use tooltips to indicate when a function will not complete an action. Use an error message instead.
Use tooltips when displaying concise information that can be summarized or explained in three lines or less.
Use a link to reference documentation if the information that needs to be displayed is multiple paragraphs, has an example, or requires images or videos to explain.
If including a keyboard shortcut in the tooltip, do not hard code the keyboard shortcut into the tooltip string, as it will not update if the user personalizes their keyboard shortcuts.
Do utilize the shortcut manager to manage shortcuts, surfacing them to the user in context using a tooltip.
Unity standards on shortcuts;
When a text is truncated, the full text appears in its tooltip on hover. When adding both the full label and a description in a tooltip, make sure label comes first with a line break.
General guidance on writing style and terminology for all technical reference communication at Unity.
Check the text for typos, voice, and capitalization
Tooltips are drawn as floating windows and their style varies based on how the operating system draws floating panels.
1. Hovered element
2. Container
3. Tooltip text
Tooltips appear horizontally centered, and 10 px below the bottom edge of the element that triggered it.
If this positioning causes the tooltip to appear out of the bounds of the screen, it will reposition itself so that the entire tooltip is displayed.
Tooltips are transient, and only appear on hover on the element that triggers it.
A new user, a user using a screen reader, or a user that uses an icon-heavy interface regularly may not know what the icon may represent. Use tooltips to assign a label to the icon. See the accessibility section on alt text ->
