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Helper text

Forms · researched

Small text under a label that tells the person what to enter or how.

atom · also called Hint, Help text

Carbon has helper text built into each field rather than as a component.

Each block is the real component from that system’s own package, in an isolated frame. They are live: hover, focus and press them. Frames are drawn on white so systems compare on one ground, and a font a system licenses only for its own site (GOV.UK’s Transport) falls back to what the system itself specifies.

Ant Design

Form.Item extra / help subset native: no antd 6.6.5
Variants
—
Sizes
—
States documented
—
Accessibility guidance
no

Index said not shipped. Form.Item has an extra prop (hint text) and a help prop, rendered in a div below the control with an _extra id referenced by aria-describedby. Props of Form.Item, no standalone component.

docs ↗ · code ↗

Carbon

absentCarbon does not ship this component. Nothing is drawn in its place.

Checked docs components and source. Helper text is a helperText prop on each field, rendered as a div with the form__helper-text class; there is no component.

GOV.UK

Hint native: no govuk-frontend 6.5.1
Variants
—
Sizes
—
States documented
—
Accessibility guidance
unread

Renders a div linked to the field by aria-describedby. Has no page of its own on the design system site (URL returns 404); documented in each input component's page. Template is a plain div, so 'native' means no custom element.

1 corrected on re-read
  • builds_on_native: "yes" → "no" template.njk renders <div class="govuk-hint">, a generic element

· code ↗

Material Web

absentMaterial Web does not ship this component. Nothing is drawn in its place.

Checked docs/components (20 component pages), the repo top-level dirs, labs/, labs/gb/components and the installed 2.5.0 package. Not a component: the supporting-text property of text field and select (text-field.md Supporting text section).

Primer

FormControl.Caption subset native: no @primer/react 38.40.1
Variants
—
Sizes
—
States documented
—
Accessibility guidance
yes

Disagrees with index (said not shipped). Primer React: FormControl.Caption renders hint text under the label, associated with the input via aria-describedby; subcomponent of FormControl only.

2 corrected on re-read
  • builds_on_native: "yes" → "no" Renders Text (span); A11y page: captions are generic span linked via aria-describedby
  • a11y_documented: "no" → "yes" Shared FormControl accessibility page covers captions

docs ↗ · code ↗

Spectrum

Help text native: no @spectrum-web-components/button 1.12.4
Variants
neutral, negative
Sizes
small, medium, large, extra-large
States documented
default, disabled, error
Accessibility guidance
no

Docs from the rsp page. SWC 1st-gen sp-help-text (variant neutral or negative; renders a div) and spectrum-css helptext 7.2.0; in S2 it is the internal Field description and errorMessage props. Installed SWC 1.12.4 has help-text. The accessibility fragment is the generic Button keyboard table.

3 corrected on re-read
  • variants: null → ["neutral","negative"] Page: Help text has two variants: neutral and negative
  • sizes: null → ["small","medium","large","extra-large"] Page: four sizes small to extra-large
  • a11y_documented: "yes" → "no" rsp accessibility fragment is the Button keyboard table (identical to rsp button fragment), not about this component

docs ↗ · code ↗

USWDS

Hint native: no @uswds/uswds 3.14.0
Variants
required (usa-hint--required)
Sizes
—
States documented
default
Accessibility guidance
no

Agrees with index. Style class only; no component page; hints appear in Text input and Checkbox label descriptions.

2 corrected on re-read
  • builds_on_native: "yes" → "no" usa-hint is a span or div, no native hint element
  • variants: [] → ["required (usa-hint--required)"] scss defines .usa-hint--required; docs form page uses it on abbr

· code ↗

Platform facts

Native elementnot recordedNo HTML element. APG Checkbox and Radio Group: descriptive text is referenced via aria-describedby; MDN aria-describedby page read.
Baseline—
APG patterncheckbox
ARIA role—
Shipped by5 of 7 systems

Anatomy

  1. descriptive text — APG Checkbox and Radio Group: 'additional descriptive static text' is referenced by aria-describedby on the control or group.
  2. described control optional — The element carrying aria-describedby (MDN aria-describedby).

The seven states

default Static text.
hover n/a — Not interactive.
focus n/a — Not focusable by default.
active n/a — Not interactive.
disabled n/a — Not defined by APG or HTML.
error n/a — Not defined by APG or HTML.
loading n/a — Not defined by APG or HTML.

Every cell was read twice, the second time from raw sources by a separate pass. 8 of 35 fields changed on the second read — open any “corrected” note to see what it said before.