UI Terms visual dictionary

Components

Toast

A short, self-dismissing message that appears at the edge of the screen to confirm an action or report a status.

Toasts appear after an action, stay visible for a few seconds, and disappear on their own. They do not block the rest of the UI. Material Design calls them snackbars and places them at the bottom; iOS and most web apps place them at the top or bottom corner. Stack multiple toasts vertically if more than one arrives. For persistent messages, use a banner instead.

Also called

snackbartransient notificationflash message

When to use

  • Confirming non-critical actions like 'Copied' or 'Saved'
  • Reporting background events like 'Connection restored'
  • Brief status updates that should not interrupt the user

When not to use

  • Errors the user must read or act on (use a banner or dialog)
  • Long messages that can't be read in a few seconds
  • Information that the user needs to refer back to

Source

Material Design ('Snackbars'); web vernacular 'toast' originated from Android's Toast XML class. Popular libraries: Sonner, react-hot-toast, Radix Toast.