Alert - Expandable

Contributors

Leyda Hughes (VSA Facilities Team)

Examples

Default (Informational)

View va-alert-expandable in Storybook

Warning alert

View va-alert-expandable in Storybook

Usage

When to use Alert - Expandable

• Unprompted alerts. - A standard Alert should only appear when prompted by a user action. By contrast, Alert - Expandable is only to be used when a user action has NOT prompted the alert. In other words, the Alert - Expandable is already present when the user loads the page.
• In-page alerts. - A standard Alert should only be placed at the top of the page. By contrast, Alert - Expandable is only to be used within the contents of a page, not as a page-level alert. Thus it should be used sparingly to drive a user’s attention to important information related to the section it appears within. For example, this component has been used to highlight copay charges that are due.
• Provide more information without leaving the page. The more minimal style of the collapsed Alert - Expandable is intended to be less visually prominent than a standard Alert in order to not conflict with an Alert should it appear on the same page. It allows for providing more important information once expanded that can inform the user of an important situation.

When to consider something else

• User feedback. Use the Alert component when responding to an action taken by a user such as submitting a form.
• Clarifying background information. Use the Additional info component when clarifying outcomes for an input or a form question as well as providing background information. Keep in mind that Alert - Expandable should warrant an alert and be used sparingly. The value of any type of alert is diminished if the page is littered with alerts of equal weight.

Behavior

Choosing between variations

• Warning. Just like the standard Alert, the Warning variation is used to warn a user, such as when there are negative consequences, or when something has gone wrong.
• Informational. Just like the standard Alert, the Informational default variation is used to provide helpful information or something that warrants a user’s attention. It is not used for negative consequences.

Placement

• Alert - Expandable must only appear within a section of a page, not at the top so as not to compete with the standard Alert placement.

Instances of this component in production

Facility status for COVID-19 in Location finder

Facility status for COVID-19 in Facility page

Code usage

Attributes and Properties

Events

Accessibility considerations

• No auto-dismissal. Don’t automatically dismiss an alert based on a timer or time limit.

Assign an appropriate ARIA role

In some situations, an ARIA role may need to be added to the alert component for it to work best for people who use assistive technology. ARIA should be used sparingly to supplement and enhance the native features of HTML.

• Static alert: No role. If the alert is a static alert that exists on the page when the page gets loaded, it likely doesn’t need a role.
• Timely information that requires action: Use role="alert". If the alert conveys timely or time-sensitive and important information that needs to be acted on before moving forward, use role="alert".
• Interactive elements: Use role="alertdialog". If the information in the alert contains interactive elements, like links or buttons, use the role="alertdialog" role instead of role="alert".
• Important but not timely: Use role="region". If the information isn’t timely and doesn’t need to be acted on immediately, but still contains important information that represents a substantial topic on the page, role=”region” may be appropriate. Some roles, like role="region", help assistive technology identify the content as being grouped and separated from the rest of the page content. For example, some assistive technologies can navigate by landmark roles like role="region".

More on ARIA specific roles.

Alternative (alt) text for icons and images

For accessibility best practices, we differentiate between images that are decorative and images that are informative.

• Decorative images: Dividers or design items that do not provide additional context or content. They may exist on the page for purely aesthetic reasons. They don’t add to the information a user needs and they make little sense, or are unnecessary, when read with a screen reader.
• Informative images: convey some kind of information. To determine whether an image is informative or not, try removing it from the design. If information is missing with the image removed it means that the image is informative and needs alt text.

Consider the purpose of your graphic and whether alt text will provide any information, benefit, or feeling (e.g. the icons used in this Alert component) If the image will not provide information, benefit, or sentiment then do not provide alt text on the image. For more information on why we must provide relevant and meaningful alt text and how to create quality alt text please refer to the content style guide on Alternative text for images.

Research

Medical copay enhancement tool usability - July 2021

The alert was tested as part of a usability study with 9 participants. The alert was used to display copay charges referred to the Department of Treasury that needed to be resolved ASAP, so it was pertinent that the alert was immediately noticeable by Veterans.

View the component in the prototype here.

Findings

• The alert was often the first thing Veterans noticed when arriving on the page
• Some clicked on the alert to read more about the referred charge while others moved on to looking at other sections of the prototype
• Veterans generally understood that they could interact with the alert. However, one asked themselves, “Can I click on this?” before clicking on it. That may have been because they were interacting with a prototype where not every element was interactive rather than because they were unsure that the alert was clickable in general.

Related

• Additional info
• Alert - Background only

Component checklist