A toggle switch is a type of switch that has two states—on and off. When a toggle switch is on, the device or system is active; when it is off, it is inactive. Toggle switches can be used for a variety of purposes, including changing settings and features. Toggle switches are usually small, rectangular buttons that have a clear visual indication of their current state (such as changing color or animation) and a clearly written label to communicate their purpose.
Toggle switches are most often found on user interfaces, but they can be placed in other areas of a product as well. In general, toggles should be designed to be intuitive, easy to understand, and clear in their purpose. They should also be consistent in design across all of a product’s interfaces.
There are a few different ways to implement a feature toggle in code. The simplest approach is to hardcode the feature toggle in a block of code using something like an if statement. This method has the advantage of being quick and simple, but it can also be difficult to maintain in the long term. For this reason, most teams prefer to use a more dynamic approach to managing toggle configuration.
The next approach to using toggles is to store them in a database table. This has the benefit of allowing for more granular control over a toggle’s state, but it can introduce additional overhead as each toggle must be manually updated with a new value every time the system runs. Additionally, the database query for each toggle can impact production performance. To avoid this, savvy teams strive to keep their inventory of toggles low and to clean up idle toggles as soon as they are no longer needed. This can be done by adding toggle removal tasks to a team’s backlog or by building a process into their management platform.
Some teams use toggles to perform A/B testing. For example, an e-commerce company might test out algorithm B by enabling it for some users and allowing the rest of their user base to see algorithm A instead. In this way, they can learn which algorithm their users prefer without affecting the data of all users simultaneously.
Many organizations use toggles to support dev teams as they write new features. This can prevent the risk that a bugfix accidentally worsens a feature’s behavior. However, creating a toggle for a ticket can be more complicated than the bugfix itself and it can be challenging to decide whether or not a toggle is necessary for a given ticket. Thus, I think it is prudent to evaluate each ticket on a case-by-case basis and to create a toggle only when the benefits outweigh the costs. For example, a simple permission toggle might be sufficient to support a feature without significantly impacting other users. However, more complex experimentation could require a more sophisticated set of tools.
