Toggle is a kind of hardware or software switch that allows the user to activate a function. The function is turned on when the toggle is pressed and off when it is released. Toggles are most commonly found in options menus of software applications, but they can also be found on hardware like computer keyboards (e.g., Caps Lock and Num Lock). Alternatively, the term can be used to refer to a physical pin passed through an eye of a rope or chain.
Feature Toggles are a very powerful tool but can be misused by teams that don’t have the right tools to use them properly. Savvy teams view their Feature Toggle inventory as a burden with a cost and they seek to minimize that cost by actively deprecating or removing Feature Toggles as they are no longer needed.
When used in a software context, toggles are often a good choice to allow users to adjust system settings or preferences. They are generally easier to manage than two radio buttons, and they take up less screen space. Toggles are also a common component for mobile apps because they are easily manipulated on the smaller screens of these devices.
However, toggles should be designed with the user in mind. When they are not, they can create confusion or even be completely inaccessible to users with various disabilities. For example, many designers use colors to help differentiate the state of a toggle, and this can be problematic for people with low contrast vision. This is particularly true for users with red/green color blindness, who can be confused by green as being “on” and red as being “off”.
In addition to using clear labels, it is important that the visual design of a toggle is consistent and intuitive. This means that the toggle should be shaped to look like a slider and should utilize visual cues such as movement, size and color to make it obvious what it does when it is in either an on or off state.
Finally, when using toggles in a web application, developers should be careful to ensure that the markup for a toggle is correct. If a toggle is used to set an immediate value, then it should be marked up with the
Finally, it is important that teams use a consistent pattern when creating their toggles. This is not just to ensure that the toggles work as intended, but it also helps to keep code quality high and reduces the likelihood of bugs. This is why many teams choose to store their toggle configuration in a centralized repository such as an existing app DB. This can help to ensure consistency and that the toggles are managed in a way that is easy for other developers, testers and product managers to understand and use.
