Today we remember tooltips in interfaces. NNGroup published a decent note The principle of the golden age of interface design: if a tooltip…

Today we remember tooltips in interfaces. NNGroup published a decent note The principle of the golden age of interface design: if a tooltip is needed, the design work has not been done. The designer did not understand the task and literally propped it up with a crutch Why is a tooltip a symptom of poorly done work? A tooltip is a symptom: the designer did not wrap the meaning in a flow of self-sufficient interaction with the interface. Did not rethink the task This is often a painful thing in our work: the difference between carrying out the wording and solving the problem The task is almost always written in the language of the organization, not the user. It has many hidden assumptions: legal, marketing, KPI, historical ("that is how we do it"), technical ("it is already done like this"). If a designer simply implements the literal text of the task, they serve these assumptions without checking whether they lead to clarity of interaction How to solve the task? Take a step back: reformulate the task as a user goal: • explain the value and give control • help complete the scenario quickly and without errors And build the interface so that user behavior flows from the form, not from "read the instruction" A tooltip is often an admission that the mechanism does not work by itself. If an action requires explanation, it means: • either the affordance, the form's hint at the action, is weak • or the model, what is even happening here, did not match what the user imagined • or the scenario is overloaded with someone else's goals, and the designer "had no right" to simplify - but then it is more honest to admit that design is not needed