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An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Theme:

Design system switcher

Version:

Design system switcher

Theme:

Design system switcher

Version:

Design system switcher

Hint

Hint text is used in combination with a Label to provide extra instructions or context for form fields.

Examples

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Code

React

Preact/React documentation for Storybook

Style customization

The following CSS variables can be overridden to customize Form components:

CSS variables for form
VariableDefault Core Theme Value
--form__max-width460px
--form__max-width--small6em
--form__max-width--medium12em
--form-hint__colorhex value: #5a5a5a--color-gray-dark
--form-hint__color--inversehex value: #e9ecf1--color-muted-inverse
--form-error__colorhex value: #e31c3d--color-error
--form-error__color--inversehex value: #f7bbc5--color-error-lighter

Guidance

  • Hints are built in to all design-system form fields but can be used on their own to create custom fields.
  • Use hint text for supporting contextual help that is always visible.
  • Hint text should sit between a form label and the input.
  • Use lower visual style (i.e., lighter gray than the form label or the input option) so it won't compete for users' attention with the field label.
  • Use hint text to indicate which inputs are optional when there are more required fields than optional.
  • Hint text can also appear after an input box when the text is being used to show the value someone should be entering in the field (e.g., income amount input box displays text after the input box to highlight the amount should be "monthly income".)

Content

  • Use when appropriate to support a field label.
  • Describe how to best answer the question/form label.
  • Use the fewest words possible (i.e. don't use "please").
  • Use sentence case.
  • End with a period.
  • Be consistent with phrase and sentence structure.

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Component maturity

This component meets 100% of our maturity criteria.

What does this mean?

Each component is tested against the following items to gauge the component's maturity. When using incomplete components, consider the unmet criteria as applied to your product.

For more information about how we tested and validated our work for each checklist item, read our component maturity documentation.