Carbon Design System

Popover

Stable
Last updated Sep 30, 2026
Carbon Core

    A popover is a layer that appears above page content to provide additional information, context, or actions without leaving the current view.

    Popover

    What Carbon provides

    Carbon bakes keyboard operation into its components, improving the experience of blind users and others who operate via the keyboard. Carbon incorporates many other accessibility considerations, some of which are described below.

    Keyboard interactions

    Popovers use an icon button for the trigger. These buttons are in the tab order and are activated by pressing Enter or Space. The activation toggles the popover open and closed, and focus remains on the trigger.

    When the popover contains interactive elements, pressing Tab will move focus to the first component in the popover. When the popover only has non-interactive text, or when the focus is on the last component in the popover, pressing Tab will close the popover and move focus to the next tab stop on the page.

    The icon button trigger and interactive elements inside of the popover are in the page tab order.

    The icon button trigger and interactive elements inside of the popover are in the page tab order.

    Use Space or Enter to open and close the popover, and use Esc or Tab on the last component to dismiss it.

    Use Space or Enter to open and close the popover, and use Esc or Tab on the last component to dismiss it.

    Development considerations

    Keep these considerations in mind if you are modifying Carbon or creating a custom component.

    • The icon button has an aria-label that defines or describes what the icon is.
    • The button uses aria-expanded to set popover visibility and aria-controls to handle navigation to the content.

    Accessibility testing status

    Latest version: 1.114.0 | Framework: React (@carbon/react)

    ComponentAccessibility testStatusLink to source code
    PopoverTest(s) that ensure the initial render state of a component is accessible.Automated or manual testing has been temporarily deferred.GitHub link
    Tests that ensure additional states of the component are accessible. This could be interactive states of a component or its multiple variants.Passes all automated tests with no reported accessibility violations.
    Tests that ensure focus is properly managed, and all interactive functions of a component have a proper keyboard-accessible equivalent.Passes all automated tests with no reported accessibility violations.
    This manual testing ensures that the visual information on the screen is properly conveyed and read correctly by screen readers such as JAWS, VoiceOver, and NVDA.A human has manually tested this component, e.g. screen reader testing.
    Learn more about tag and test meaningView all component accessibility status

    Feedback

    Help us improve by providing feedback, asking questions, requesting features, or leaving any other comments on GitHub.