Tooltip and Contextual Help Copy Audit Workflow in Figma

Tooltips are easy to add and hard to govern. A designer explains an unfamiliar icon, product adds a coach mark for a new feature, support requests a warning beside a risky setting, and six months later the interface contains overlapping guidance with different names for the same action.

A contextual-help audit is not a hunt for shorter sentences. It determines whether help appears at the right moment, answers a real question, and still matches the product.

Inventory help by trigger and state

Export or collect the text from relevant Figma flows before editing. Include tooltips, helper text, info popovers, coach marks, setup tips, validation guidance, and “learn more” links. Record more than the string itself:

Field	Why it matters
Surface and component	Locates repeated instances
Trigger	Hover, focus, click, first visit, error, empty state
Audience	New user, admin, expert, specific role
Question answered	Tests whether the help has a job
Dismissal or persistence	Prevents guidance becoming an obstacle
Destination link	Reveals stale documentation
Owner and last review	Makes maintenance possible

CopyDoc can export Figma text to a spreadsheet for review and import approved changes back into the design. That makes it easier to see repeated strings and terminology across many screens than opening every tooltip one at a time.

Decide whether each message should exist

Classify every item before rewriting it:

• Remove: repeats a visible label, explains an obvious icon, or documents an old limitation.
• Move into the interface: essential information that should not depend on discovery by hover or click.
• Keep contextual: brief guidance needed only at a particular action or state.
• Link outward: complex policy, setup, or troubleshooting that needs durable documentation.
• Escalate to design: copy is compensating for an unclear control, hidden dependency, or broken flow.

“Click Save to save your changes” is not help. “Changing the billing country affects tax on future invoices” may be essential inline guidance. A tooltip is a poor container for information users must know before taking a consequential action.

Review the trigger, not only the wording

Copy cannot fix inaccessible or mistimed behavior. Check whether hover-only content is also available to keyboard and touch users. Confirm focus order, dismissal, persistence, and whether the message obscures the control it explains. For coach marks, verify that users can skip the sequence and reopen relevant guidance later.

Map each message to the state shown in the Figma design. A tooltip explaining a disabled action should say what unlocks it. An admin-only helper should not appear in a member view. Guidance for an empty integration state should not remain after the integration connects.

Create realistic variants for loading, permission, error, and success states where the guidance changes. This is narrower than a general error-message and empty-state review: the audit focuses on optional or adjacent help and whether it is discoverable at the correct trigger.

Give every string one clear job

Useful contextual help commonly does one of four things:

1. Defines an unfamiliar term.
2. Explains the consequence of an action.
3. States the requirement needed to proceed.
4. Points to a deeper, maintained resource.

Lead with the answer. Replace “This setting allows you to configure…” with the outcome or consequence. Use the interface’s exact nouns and verbs. If the button says “Archive project,” do not call the action “deactivate workspace” in its tooltip.

Avoid cramming prerequisites, benefits, edge cases, and a marketing claim into one popover. Keep critical guidance visible; send secondary detail to documentation. If a tooltip includes a link, make the link label describe the destination rather than “Learn more.”

Audit terminology across the set

Sort the spreadsheet by key terms and compare variants. Common drift includes:

• account, workspace, organization, and team used interchangeably;
• delete, remove, disconnect, and revoke used for different consequences;
• publish, sync, save, and apply used without a clear state model;
• plan names or permission roles that no longer exist;
• time language such as “instantly” where processing may take longer.

Use find-and-replace only after reviewing context. Replacing every “team” with “workspace” may corrupt sentences where team refers to people. CopyDoc’s terminology audit workflow provides a broader method for building a source list and handling exceptions.

Test length where the copy lives

Spreadsheet approval is not visual approval. Re-import the edited strings and check them in the actual components at supported breakpoints. Test the longest permission name, plan name, number, and translated string likely to appear.

Set an explicit content limit based on the component rather than trimming by feel. If the necessary explanation cannot fit, reconsider the container. Do not solve overflow by shrinking text below the design system’s readable size.

For localization, give translators the trigger, screenshot, audience, character guidance, variables, and meaning of ambiguous terms. A tiny English tooltip may expand significantly. Check right-to-left layouts and whether the popover placement still leaves the target visible.

Close the loop with implementation and support

After approval, provide engineering with stable string IDs or a mapping between spreadsheet rows and implemented components. Mark which messages are conditional and document the trigger. During review, compare the built interface against the approved Figma states and content source.

Ask support whether the revised help reduces the question it was meant to answer. If people still ask, the issue may be discoverability, product behavior, or documentation rather than phrasing. Assign a review owner for strings tied to pricing, permissions, integrations, or features likely to change.

Audit completion checklist

• Every contextual-help string has a location, trigger, audience, and question.
• Redundant messages are removed; critical information is visible inline.
• Hover content is available through appropriate keyboard and touch behavior.
• Copy matches the exact product state, role, and terminology.
• Disabled controls explain the requirement when explanation is useful.
• Links point to current, maintained destinations.
• Approved strings have been re-imported and checked in their components.
• Long values, responsive layouts, and localization risks are reviewed.
• Engineering has stable mappings and conditional-trigger notes.
• A product or content owner is responsible for future review.

Good contextual help feels almost invisible: it appears when a real question arises, answers it directly, and gets out of the way. A structured audit keeps that small layer of product copy from becoming a parallel, outdated manual for the interface.

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