Arsalan Mlaik for Arsalan Malik

Posted on Dec 2

🛈 Mastering CSS Tooltips: A Quick & Practical Guide

#webdev #css #coding #tutorial

Published on Makemychance.com
Tooltips are small UI elements that display helpful text when users hover or tap on an element. They improve UX without adding clutter — and with just a few lines of CSS, you can create clean, modern tooltips for any website.

🔍 What Is a Tooltip?

A tooltip is a small popup text that appears on hover, focus, or tap.
Great for icons, buttons, forms, and feature explanations.

🧩 The Easiest Tooltip (HTML Only)

<button title="Click to submit">Submit</button>

✔ Super quick
✘ Can't customize the style

🎨 Custom CSS Tooltip (Modern UI)

HTML

<div class="tooltip">
  Hover me
  <span class="tooltip-text">This is a tooltip</span>
</div>

CSS

.tooltip {
  position: relative;
  cursor: pointer;
}
.tooltip .tooltip-text {
  visibility: hidden;
  background: #333;
  color: #fff;
  padding: 6px 10px;
  border-radius: 4px;
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 130%;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translateX(-50%);
  opacity: 0;
  transition: 0.3s ease;
  white-space: nowrap;
}
.tooltip:hover .tooltip-text {
  visibility: visible;
  opacity: 1;
}

📌 Tooltip Positions

Top (default)
Bottom
Left
Right

Just adjust top, left, bottom, or transform values.

🛈 Tooltip with Arrow

.tooltip .tooltip-text::after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 100%;
  left: 50%;
  border: 5px solid transparent;
  border-top-color: #333;
  transform: translateX(-50%);
}

📱 Tooltip on Mobile?

Since there's no hover on mobile:
✔ Show tooltip on click
✔ Use an info icon (i)
✔ Add a small JS toggle if needed

🛑 Common Mistakes

❌ Too much text
❌ Tooltip covering the element
❌ Bad contrast
❌ No mobile alternative

Keep it simple and readable.

🔗 Helpful References

MDN Tooltip Basics https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/title
CSS-Tricks Tooltip Guide https://css-tricks.com/css-tooltips/

🚀 Final Note

Tooltips are tiny but powerful UX boosters. With simple CSS, you can create clean, smooth, and accessible tooltips that fit perfectly into any modern UI.

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