A toggle is a small piece of wood or plastic which is sewn to something like a coat or bag, and pushed through a loop or hole to fasten it. In computers and other machines it describes a switch that can be moved between two functions.
Feature Toggles are a powerful way to manage code, but they also come with some challenges. It’s important to understand these issues when designing a toggle, so that you can avoid common pitfalls.
One big challenge is that since toggle buttons don’t contain text on/off, users must rely on other visual clues to determine the state of the button. This is why it’s important to pick the right visual clues. If you make the wrong choice, your toggle may confuse users instead of helping them understand the control’s state.
Toggle buttons are a good option for implementing controls that need to be changed often, such as a button that allows the user to select from different options in a form or to choose between a list of choices. In addition, toggles are useful for controlling the visibility of content that might not be appropriate for all audiences.
A toggle can be used in a variety of ways, from controlling access to articles to enabling and disabling features in web applications. In general, toggles are a great tool for managing the flow of new features and ensuring that they can be tested in the most effective manner.
For example, a company might want to test an algorithm with a limited group of users before releasing it to the public. This would be a perfect use case for a Permission Toggle. The company could use a Permission Toggle to make algorithm B available to a random sample of their existing user base, while keeping the default algorithm (algorithm A) available to everyone else.
Generally, toggles should have a clear label that indicates what the control does when in its on state. The label should be short and direct, with a single word or two, preferably nouns. It should also be obvious that the toggle has a binary state. It’s important to note that toggles don’t need to use colors – in fact, WCAG recommends against using them at all.
While it’s not always possible, ideally toggles should be named in a way that gives some context to someone who is reading the code but doesn’t have any other information about the toggle. This will help them understand what the toggle does and why it is being used.
It’s also best practice to move toggle configuration out of static files, and into a more dynamic method of storing them. This will usually involve a centralized database or some type of management UI which enables product managers, testers and system operators to modify the toggle configuration. This makes the toggle easier to maintain and more resilient to changes in development environments.
