The word toggle is used to describe changing settings or preferences, especially on a mobile device. Toggles are the preferred control over radio buttons and checkboxes because they take up less space on the screen. They also come with a pre-selected default state (ON or OFF) so they’re easier for users to understand.
Toggles are particularly useful when it comes to testing new features and code in a production environment. They allow engineering teams to roll out and back features without having to re-deploy the entire application. This helps to reduce coding time and improves the feedback loop that enables CI/CD.
In addition, feature toggles are an essential tool for maintaining stability during high latency periods. They serve as a way for engineers to remotely disable specific parts of an application in order to prevent performance degradation and limit downtime.
Another use case for feature toggles is A/B testing. By bucketing a cohort of users into two groups and setting an experiment toggle to either ON or OFF, engineering teams can test new code in a real-world environment with actual customers before rolling out the changes to all users. This allows them to measure the impact of a new feature on key metrics such as conversion rate or revenue per user.
It’s important to note that if you use an A/B toggle to test changes in production it is crucial to have a mechanism for overriding the toggle at runtime. Without this ability you would be forced to re-deploy the full application every time you want to change the configuration of an experiment toggle. This could potentially increase the frequency of deploys and negatively impact your CI/CD cycle.
For this reason, we recommend always using a feature flag management platform like Kameleoon to manage your toggles and experiment flags in production. This will allow you to dynamically re-configure the specific service instance of your feature flag at runtime without having to restart your application.
If you’re using an A/B toggle in production it is recommended that you also provide an alternative method for overriding its configuration, such as a Save or Confirm button. This is so that users can feel safe using your product and will not be worried about losing any data or having to go through a complex process if they accidentally toggle the experiment off in error.
Ensure that your toggle switches are clearly labeled and easy to identify for all users, particularly those with accessibility needs. This includes using proper semantic markup and alternative text for screen readers, as well as visual cues such as color changes and animations to indicate a toggle’s current state.
