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Designing Toggle Switches

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In software applications, toggle switches enable users to modify or disable existing behaviors and features. These are a common type of control, and they are often found on many mobile devices and web browsers, as well as in desktop and laptop applications.

Depending on the context in which the toggle switch is used, there are a number of different design approaches that can be taken. Some designers favor using visual cues such as movement and color to signal state change, while others use clear labels that clearly describe what the control does when it is in a specific state. In any case, the design of a toggle switch should be consistent throughout an application so that users are not confused as to what it does and how to operate it.

When using toggles, designers should keep in mind that WCAG guidelines recommend that we don’t rely solely on color to convey meaning. In some cases, this may be an easy thing to do, but in other situations it is important to consider the societal and cultural implications of choosing colors such as red for toggles that signal “on”. Also, it’s a good idea to use high-contrast colors in order to ensure that the state change is visible to all users, regardless of their vision abilities.

Another aspect of designing toggles is to be aware of how they affect the codebase. It’s common for teams to use toggles as a way to test different feature combinations in production and then roll out the best-performing toggle configuration with a new release version. In these cases, it is important that the team be proactive in removing toggle configurations that are no longer needed once the feature has been fully tested in production. This can be accomplished by adding a task on the team backlog for each toggle removal or even setting time bombs in the code that will fail a build (or even prevent it from starting!) once a toggle expires.

It is also a good idea to use a system that allows toggle configuration to live side-by-side with application code in source control. This will help to reduce the amount of manual steps that must be taken in a shared test environment when a toggle needs to be flipped and will allow for easier collaboration between testers and product managers. Additionally, in cases where a toggle is a part of a more dynamic feature flag system it may be worth considering building out some form of admin UI which enables team members to easily view and modify the state of a toggle. This will also help to limit the amount of manual steps needed to test a release version which contains a toggle configuration change.