A toggle is a control that allows users to change the state of an existing feature. Toggles are particularly well suited for changing settings or preferences that affect the entire system (like turning on or off airplane mode). They also work better than checkboxes or radio buttons on mobile because they take up less screen space.
The most important thing about designing a toggle is to make it clear what it does and how it works. A toggle switch that does not have clearly written labels or has confusing visual cues can cause confusion for users. In addition, the design of a toggle must take into account that not all users have perfect vision and that color can be misleading. In addition to clear, direct labels, it is a good idea to limit the number of words and use verbs whenever possible. Finally, it is a good idea to avoid using colors to convey meaning. Instead, rely on other visual cues such as movement and shape to communicate the status of a toggle.
If you’re going to use toggles in a new product feature it’s essential that you test the toggle configuration before releasing it. This typically means testing the toggle with its current state flipped on and a fallback state flipped off. If you don’t do this then you may discover that your new feature breaks old functionality when it is rolled out.
Toggle configurations should be stable and not change very often, ideally once per release cycle or less. This helps prevent the risk of exposing bugs in production and makes it much easier to maintain a CI/CD process. If you need to flip a toggle multiple times in a release cycle this can be difficult to manage in source control and can introduce a lot of complexity into your testing.
Generally it is better to create a separate toggle configuration for each experiment rather than mixing experiments in with product-centric toggles. This way you can test the experimental toggles more easily and it is easier to maintain consistency between releases.
When creating a new toggle you should give it a unique name that includes the project and the feature being enabled. This will help other teams quickly understand what the toggle is for and what it does. It will also provide a useful artifact for a developer to reference when debugging a specific instance of a service or implementing an integration.
Lastly, if your toggle is a key piece of infrastructure then it’s a good idea to have a naming convention for them. This will enable you to quickly identify a toggle when debugging or reading source code. This will also make it easy to find and compare different versions of a toggle configuration. This is especially helpful when you are managing large numbers of experiment toggles in a large codebase.
