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A toggle is a switch that can be placed in two positions, on and off. It is the most common type of switch used in computer hardware, but it is also found in other devices like watches and cars. Toggle switches can be used to control power or settings, and they are often seen in video chat applications that allow users to switch between their own screen and a screen with the person they are talking to.
When using a toggle to control an application or system, it is important that we design the switch so that its position can be clearly understood by our users. This is especially true in cases where the toggle will be a component of a larger interface element or an entire page. Toggles that use a checkbox or radio button style can be difficult to understand in these types of situations because they rely on color to convey meaning.
Toggle designs that use a switch with a clear label on one side will be easier to understand, but it is still critical that we avoid relying solely on color for meaning. This is because many accessibility guidelines and standards recommend against relying on color alone to communicate the state of an input field or toggle.
Managing the configuration of our toggles is another key challenge that we will face. This can range from a simple but less dynamic approach where we hardcode our toggles into code (using things like the preprocessor #ifdef feature) to more sophisticated approaches that require us to be willing to follow a pattern of deploying and redeploying our artifacts in order to change the configuration of a specific toggle.
In general it is best to be proactive in removing unused toggles from our codebase. Savvy teams will generally add a task to remove the toggle onto the product backlog whenever they create a new Release Toggle and in some cases will even go as far as creating “time bombs” that will fail automated tests or refuse to start an application if a toggle is left around after its expiration date.
It is also important to remember that the toggles that we are implementing as part of our experimentation process will likely need to be removed and replaced regularly. This is particularly important if we are running an experiment that requires the participation of thousands or millions of users. This is why many teams opt to move their toggles out of the main flow of their application into some sort of centralized store, often an existing application DB, where they can be easily modified and managed. This is usually paired with the build out of some form of admin UI to facilitate the management of these toggles by developers, testers and product managers.
