The toggle is a UI control that allows users to switch between two different states or options. It’s commonly used in technology, computing, programming, and communications to provide an easy way for users to change settings or modes.
Typically, toggles are simple on/off switches with visual cues that indicate state changes—such as animation and color change—to communicate the state of the toggle. They’re also often designed to be visually distinct from other content on a page or app, so they’re easier for people with disabilities to identify and understand.
A toggle switch can be triggered by pressing it, clicking on it, or using other user input to display the desired state. In addition to the physical switch, it’s important for designers to think about how to make toggles accessible to all users by providing alternative text and other cues for screen readers.
Toggles are ideal for displaying settings, views, or content that change frequently. They can help reduce the number of options on a page, making navigation simpler and easier for users. But it’s critical to use them sparingly and with caution. Too many toggles can create a confusing, overwhelming experience and may be difficult to debug or test.
As with all other UI elements, it’s important to ensure that toggles are consistent across your product and that they’re accessible to people with disabilities. Using the appropriate icon for each toggle and ensuring that the toggle’s label clearly communicates its purpose is essential for accessibility. Additionally, designers should consider using a visual style for toggles that’s consistent with the rest of your interface so that they’re easy for people to recognize and understand.
Savvy teams view their inventory of feature toggles as a kind of “inventory” that comes with a carrying cost—and they strive to keep this number low by pruning them as soon as they’re no longer needed. This can be as simple as adding a task to the team’s backlog for each toggle that is removed or can be as complex as building this process into your feature management platform.
Using feature toggles in your development process supports newer agile approaches by enabling you to deploy software with features that are still being developed on code branches that would otherwise require them to go through a lengthy testing and QA cycle before merging into trunk code. With Split’s Feature Data Platform, you can safely and rapidly deploy your feature experiments to production, connecting each toggle to contextual data so that you can know if they’re making things better or worse—and act accordingly.
