Toggle is a user-interface component that helps people manage the state of content or views. It is a simple, powerful tool that when used correctly can make a real difference in people’s experiences. However, when it is mis-used it can cause confusion and frustration. The key to using toggles successfully is to only use them when they are appropriate — when the user needs to switch between two opposing states of content or views. When you do use them, be sure to give them clear labels and consistent visual design.
Toggles can be used to enable and disable features on a page. This can help you optimize and test new functionality before releasing it to users. For example, you might want to allow users to turn on or off a video player in order to provide them with a better experience. Alternatively, you may want to let users switch between different fonts on a website or app. Toggle is also an effective way to allow users to update their preferences, settings, or other data.
You can create toggles using the Toggle Editor in our Tools section. The Toggle Editor provides you with a simple form where you can easily add and edit your toggle. It also allows you to change the toggle label so that it is easier for your visitors to understand the function of the toggle.
A toggle is a kind of flag that you can set up in a development environment to dynamically re-configure specific service instances on the fly. Typically, you’ll only want to do this in shared environments for automated testing or as part of manual exploratory testing and debugging. This type of feature toggle should be considered dangerous to deploy into production and should only be used by developers and testers. If you do decide to use this method for enabling or disabling features in a production environment, it is best to name the toggle so that someone on another team will have some context when they see it called out in error messages.
Toggles are often used in multivariate or A/B testing. They split a group of users into two or more cohorts and then send each cohort down a different code path. By analyzing the aggregate results of these experiments, you can determine which path is most successful. For example, an ecommerce company might want to compare the performance of two different recommendation algorithms. They might use an experiment toggle to split users into different groups, and then run a series of A/B tests to see which algorithm is more likely to drive conversions. Once the company has enough data, they can remove the experiment toggle and implement the winner in their production system. This is an excellent way to make data-driven decisions that will improve your user’s experience. However, you should never rely solely on experiment toggles for making big changes to your live site or app. Instead, use them in conjunction with other methods to ensure that you’re making a decision with the best available information.
