Description

The title attribute allows the developer/page author to provide extra information about any element on a page. Typically, this is rendered as a ‘tooltip’ which appears when the user hovers the mouse pointer over the element that the title is applied to. It is most often used for the a element (to provide additional information about the link destination), within form elements (perhaps to offer tips about the format that data is preferred in, for example date formats) and is a required attribute for the abbr and acronym elements as it is used to provide the expanded version of the abbreviations contained in those elements.

Because of the way that browsers have traditionally rendered title content - in a tooltip that appears as you hover over the element in question - many developers have used it as a ‘space-saving mechanism’, a way to provide help without necessarily cluttering up the page with extra wording, making it something that can be found if someone pauses for thought while over a given element. This is not a good technique for several reasons, namely:

• Not everyone uses a mouse, and most browsers do not render the tooltip content if the user has tabbed to that element with the keyboard.
• The tooltip content does not appear for very long in all browsers - it times out after a short while, potentially not allowing the user to read it properly (Opera is the exception to this rule).
• The tooltip content is often truncated, so it may not be possible to convey all the information in the space afforded.
• Someone having difficulty with a section on a page may not have their mouse pointer hovering over that specific section and may not see the tooltip at all.
• Because of the nature of the tooltip, it is not possible for the user to print out any content contained inside the title, nor is there any way of copying and pasting that text anywhere.

As such, the title attribute should be considered as one that may be used to offer additional information but should not be relied upon. If you have key information to present to the user, it should be written directly in to the document for all to see and not rely on the browser to display it on the fly.