Components

Textarea

Use: Deployed English, Spanish

USWDS v3

Textarea allows people to enter any type of text.

Examples - v1

See form error handling for additional guidance.

Refer to the overall form guidance for hint text examples and usage.

Predictable text. When a short, single line of text is expected and sufficient.

Max length variation. The Max length variation adds placeholder text inside the textarea. Once the user starts typing this placeholder text disappears. Once the user has entered the same number of characters as the max length, text appears below the field in the following format: (Max. NN characters). At that point no additional text can be entered into the textarea. If the user removes one or more characters and thus goes below the max limit the text beneath the field is removed.
- Note: When using this variation please note the accessibility considerations that you must take into account.

Property	Attribute	Type	Default	Description
`charcount`	`charcount`	`boolean`	`false`	Whether the component should show a character count message. Has no effect without uswds and maxlength being set.
`enableAnalytics`	`enable-analytics`	`boolean`	`false`	Emit component-library-analytics events on the blur event.
`error`	`error`	`string`		The error message to render.
`hint`	`hint`	`string`		Optional hint text.
`label`	`label`	`string`		The label for the textarea.
`maxlength`	`maxlength`	`number`		The maximum number of characters allowed in the input. Negative and zero values will be ignored.
`messageAriaDescribedby`	`message-aria-describedby`	`string`		An optional message that will be read by screen readers when the input is focused.
`name`	`name`	`string`		The name for the input.
`placeholder`	`placeholder`	`string`		The placeholder string.
`required`	`required`	`boolean`	`false`	Set the input to required and render the (Required) text.
`uswds`	`uswds`	`boolean`	`false`	Whether or not the component will use USWDS v3 styling.
`value`	`value`	`string`		The value of the textarea

Name	Description
`component-library-analytics`	The event used to track usage of the component. This is emitted when the textarea is blurred and `enableAnalytics` is true

Native onInput and onBlur events are available on this component. They can be used by adding the event handler to your component and it will then listen to the event and respond accordingly when the event fires.

Avoid placeholder text. Excluding our max characters variation, avoid using placeholder text. Most browsers’ default rendering of placeholder text does not provide a high enough contrast ratio. Also, placeholder text is no longer visible once a user clicks into the field. Thus users will no longer have that text available when they need to review their entries. People who have cognitive or visual disabilities have additional problems with placeholder text.
When using placeholder text, provide screen reader accessible text. When using the placeholder prop, which is used automatically by the Max length variation, additional work is required to make the component accessible. Screen readers such as JAWS and NVDA don’t read placeholder text. Placeholder text is a visual addition only. Thus when using placeholder text to provide important information visually you must also convey this information to screen reader users as well. To do this this add screen read only text within a <span> using the .sr-only CSS class and place the span and text where you would like it to be read out, typically after the field label.
Only show error validation messages or stylings after a user has interacted with a particular field. Do not interrupt a user while they are entering text into a textarea.