Interactive Glossary with Tooltips
Hover or tap technical terms to see instant definitions. Click for detailed explanations in a side panel.
What is an Interactive Glossary?
An interactive glossary enhances user experience by providing contextual definitions without disrupting reading flow. When users encounter unfamiliar terms, they can hover for a quick tooltip or click for comprehensive details in a side panel.
Live Demo: Try the Glossary
Modern web development relies heavily on APIs to connect different services. When building a SPA, developers often use REST or GraphQL to fetch data. Understanding CORS is essential for secure cross-origin requests.
Performance optimization involves techniques like lazy loading, caching, and CDN usage. Modern frameworks implement SSR for better SEO and initial load times.
Implementation Strategy
Markup with Data Attributes
Each glossary term uses a data-term attribute to link to its definition in the JSON object. The aria-describedby attribute connects terms to their tooltips for screen readers, ensuring accessibility compliance.
Tooltip Behavior: Desktop vs Mobile
On desktop, tooltips appear on hover with a 300ms delay to prevent accidental triggers. On mobile, tap shows the tooltip briefly before opening the full panel. Touch events are detected to optimize the experience for each device type.
Accessibility Features
- ARIA roles and labels for screen reader support
- Keyboard navigation with Escape key to close panel
- Focus management when panel opens and closes
- High contrast colors meeting WCAG standards
Performance Optimization
The glossary uses event delegation on the container rather than individual listeners on each term. Definitions are stored in a single JSON object for instant lookup. CSS transforms handle animations for smooth 60fps performance.
How AI Builder Can Generate This
AI Builder transforms your description into a complete WordPress page with Gutenberg blocks, custom CSS, and functional JavaScript. Simply describe your interactive glossary feature, and AI Builder generates the JSON block structure, styles the tooltips and panel, and creates the vanilla JS logic for term detection and interaction.
The AI handles responsive design, accessibility attributes, and performance optimization automatically. You get production-ready code that works immediately, with no manual coding required.
Prompt to Reproduce This Feature
Use this exact prompt with AI Builder to create your own interactive glossary page:
Create an "Interactive Glossary": certain terms in the content show a tooltip on hover/tap, and clicking a term opens a side panel with the full definition. The glossary should be driven by a JSON object inside the JavaScript. Implement it in vanilla JS inside an HTML block.