A toggle is a pin or rod that can be inserted transversely through an eye or loop in a chain or rope to bind it temporarily. The term can also be used to refer to a physical switch that allows you to select between two functions on a device such as a computer or a car. Toggle switches are often made from metals such as aluminium or brass. These are more durable and have good conductivity but can be a bit heavier than plastic toggles.
Toggles are also a useful tool for agile teams that want to perform code sprints and other development work on new features without making those changes visible to users immediately. Traditionally these types of features would be developed on separate branches that go through the traditional waterfall testing and QA process before they could be merged back into trunk code. Using feature toggles allows your team to complete the entire development and testing cycle of a new feature on a separate branch that can then be deployed via a release with just one flip of a switch.
Managing Toggle Configuration
When a toggle is first introduced it should have a unique name so that it is easy to track across the entire codebase. This will allow for easy removal once the toggle has served its purpose or it has been determined that it is not suitable as a solution to a given problem. Savvy teams will have a process in place to manage the lifecycle of each toggle by adding a task to the team’s backlog to remove it as soon as its usefulness has run out. Some teams even put an expiration date on their toggles that will fail tests (or otherwise prevent a build from being triggered) if the toggle is still active after that date.
Using toggles to implement UI features can be a great way to improve the usability of your product. For example, toggles can be used to enable or disable features that may be confusing for your users such as a persistent notification or the ability to edit a user’s email address. However, it is important to remember that a toggle should not be the only design element you use to communicate state to your users. It is recommended to use a combination of visual signifiers to communicate state such as text, icons or a simple on/off switch. It is also recommended to avoid relying on color alone to convey state as this can cause issues for some users with vision impairments or cultural differences in how colors are perceived.
Lastly, it is important to be mindful of the maintenance costs associated with a toggle system. For example, if you are managing toggle configuration in static files it will be time consuming and labor intensive to modify those files when you need to change a toggle’s configuration. For this reason many organizations move their toggle configuration into some type of centralized store, typically an existing application DB. This often comes paired with the build out of some form of admin UI for system operators, testers and product managers to view and modify toggle configuration.
