In computing, a toggle is a switch that enforces a mutually exclusive state. It lets users press on or off, and uses a different appearance for each state to make it obvious which is the current one. Toggles are commonly used to control behavior, such as enabling or disabling features or functionality, or to change settings (e.g., from privacy to public).

For example, a company might use a toggle to turn off email marketing for new customers. Or a website might let users toggle between a dark and light theme to see how each one looks before deciding which one to use. A toggle is also a common way to allow users to switch between multiple logins on the same computer.

But a toggle can be confusing to use if it’s not designed well, especially for people with visual disabilities or cognitive issues. For example, if toggles don’t use contextual cues to show which state they are in, or use color to indicate a state, people with low vision can easily get confused by which one is active. They may also have trouble with ambiguous labels, like “no cookies” and “cookies”.

A toggle can be confusing for people who have red/green color blindness or limited sight, too. And if a toggle’s states aren’t labelled in an intuitive way, they can be confusing for people who have hearing or speech impairments. Toggle buttons can also cause performance problems for some people, particularly if they are dynamic. This is because every time a toggle flips, the database calls to read its state. This can lead to thousands or millions of queries for a rarely changing state.

There are also times when a toggle isn’t the best option for a feature. For instance, if an app creates a toggle for a complex decision tree that requires multiple conditions to act upon, this can create hundreds or even millions of database calls – just to flip the toggle on or off.

This can negatively impact the user experience and lead to a lot of unnecessary network traffic, which is why it’s generally better to avoid using them if possible. If you need to create a toggle, try to limit it to a few major decisions and keep the number of possible outcomes to a minimum.

Visibility toggles are a powerful way to give readers the ability to view private content at their leisure. This tool allows authors to make certain sections of articles private or visible at a moment’s notice without having to edit the article itself. Toggle visibility is available to Grandmaster subscription tiers and above. If you would like to enable this feature, click here. For more information about our subscription tiers, please visit our Subscriptions page.