The word toggle is a combination of two words: toggl (meaning to switch) and toggler (a piece of wood or plastic that is pushed into a loop or hole to fasten it). In everyday technology, a toggle can be found in hardware devices like keyboards and laptops where you can use a button to enable/disable functions like Caps Lock and Num Lock. It can also be found in software applications in settings menus that let you turn on and off functionality or display modes.
Toggles are a great way to add flexibility and user control to your web design and development process. They provide a simple, scalable method of changing the visual appearance and behavior of elements on your website or app. When used correctly, a toggle can make your design more user-friendly, increase conversion rates and create a better overall user experience.
But, the misuse of a toggle can result in a lot of confusion and even frustration for users. It is essential to use toggles with care, and to limit them to small parts of your design. If you try to implement too many toggles, they will be confusing and can become difficult for your team to maintain.
In addition, it is important to consider accessibility when using toggles. Many developers and designers don’t know enough about accessibility, and this can lead to toggles that are not accessible to all users. This includes people who use screen readers and other assistive technologies that can’t see or interact with HTML markup. Toggle switches that are purely visual are also inaccessible to those with color blindness. The use of colors alone to represent toggle states can be very confusing to some users. For example, a toggle that is green when active and red when inactive can be unrecognizable to those with color blindness, especially if the labels are in the same order.
Another popular use of toggles is for feature experimentation. By implementing toggles as part of your development process, you can create and test new features with a subset of your audience before making them a permanent part of your product. Toggles can also serve as circuit breakers in your application and prevent a bug from affecting the whole user base, in the event of an error or unexpected behavior.
Some teams manage their toggle configuration via static files, but this can become cumbersome once you reach a certain scale. A more efficient approach is to deploy a feature flag management platform like Kameleoon, which lets your team access and manage all of your toggles in one place. You can also use these platforms to help reduce technical debt by removing obsolete flags that are no longer needed.
