Components

Textarea

Use: Deployed English, Spanish

USWDS v3

Textarea allows people to enter any type of text.

Examples

Usage

Refer to the U.S. Web Design System for usage guidance

Additional guidance for VA

When to consider something else

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

Errors

Refer to the specific error examples above.

View form error handling for additional guidance

Code usage

Attributes and Properties

Property	Attribute	Type	Default	Description
`charcount`	`charcount`	`boolean`	`false`	Whether the component should show a character count message. Has no effect without 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.
`formHeading`	`form-heading`	`string`		The content of the heading if `useFormsPattern` is true.
`formHeadingLevel`	`form-heading-level`	`number`	`3`	The heading level for the heading if `useFormsPattern` is true.
`headerAriaDescribedby`	`header-aria-describedby`	`string`		An optional message that will be read by screen readers when the header is focused. The label-header-level prop must be set for this to be active.
`hint`	`hint`	`string`		Optional hint text.
`label`	`label`	`string`		The label for the textarea.
`labelHeaderLevel`	`label-header-level`	`string`		Insert a header with defined level inside the label (legend)
`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.
`useFormsPattern`	`use-forms-pattern`	`string`		Enabling this will add a heading and description for integrating into the forms pattern. Accepts `single` or `multiple` to indicate if the form is a single input or will have multiple inputs.
`value`	`value`	`string`		The value of the textarea

Events

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

Using message-aria-describedby

In HTML, the attribute aria-describedby accepts ids of the elements that describe an object. This is used to establish a relationship between an element and text elsewhere that describes it for screen readers.

However, the VA.gov Design System uses web components and the shadow DOM, which prevents HTML’s aria-describedby from being able to establish the relationship between elements. Because of that, the message-aria-describedby prop is used in our components instead. Instead of accepting ids, it accepts a message string to read out. This message is placed inside the shadow DOM, hidden visually, but made accessible to screen readers. This allows it to function similarly to aria-describedby and have the descriptive text read out when the element is focused.

Native Events

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.

Accessibility considerations

Refer to the U.S. Web Design System for accessibility guidance

Avoid placeholder text. Excluding our max characters variation (v1), 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 (v1 only), 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.

Textarea

Examples

Default

Required

Hint text

With Character count

Forms pattern - Single

Forms pattern - Single error

Forms pattern - Multiple

Forms pattern - Multiple error

Error