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Tooltips 0:46
A 46-second explainer of Tooltips, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Tooltips demo
What this video covers
A tooltip is a small label that appears on hover or focus to explain a control - most often a bare icon whose meaning isn't obvious. Used well it's a quiet safety net for recognition; used as a crutch it hides essential information behind an interaction many people can't or won't perform.
Without the tooltips the icons were a guessing game - you hovered hoping to find the right one. With them, a hover or a focus named each one, and the doubt cleared. But notice: you had to go looking. On a phone, with no hover, that label would never have appeared at all - which is why a tooltip can support an icon but never carry it.
