Changing Cursor with CSS for better UX

#css #webdev #beginners #ux

May 20 ・2 min read

The cursor CSS property sets the type of mouse cursor, if any, to show when the mouse pointer is over an element.

There are some cases where the default cursor behaviour from the User Agent Stylesheet doesn’t cut it. In these cases, we ought to change the cursor to something that reflects the expected user interaction on that element.

Checkout all the cursors on codepen 🧡

Using a Custom Cursor ↓

The cursor property is specified as zero or more <url> values, separated by commas. The cursor property does accept SVG files in all its glory but not Gifs.

Yes, you can create your own custom cursor using any images like png, jpg, etc.

<div class="cursors">
  <button class="heart">Heart</button>
  <button class="earth">Earth</button>
  <button class="smile">Smile</button>
</div>

.cursors {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
}
.heart {
  cursor: url("https://i.imgur.com/K10EMnr.png"), auto;
}
.earth {
  cursor: url("https://i.imgur.com/scE50J2.png"), pointer;
}
.smile {
  cursor: url("https://i.imgur.com/aPPijZC.png"), pointer;
}

Output:

📝 NOTE: The size of the images should not be greater than 32*32 DIP, else you will get the below warning and your image won't work.

I have used this website for resizing my images.

Reference 🧐

MDN Doc Cursor

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Discussion (3)

Temani Afif • May 20

When using an image it's good to also adjust the position to avoid the "offset" effect that may look buggy. You can use url("...") 10 10, auto for example

Maureen T'O • May 20

I actually didn’t know about the cursor image sizing, so thank you! 😯 Also, I heard it’s a minor UX thing to make a “disabled” mouse cursor when hovering over disabled features (although disabling elements turns out to NOT be that great for accessibility. Do you know if screen readers will register a change in a mouse cursor? 😯