Toggle is a user interface control that can be used to update preferences, settings, or other state variables. Toggles can be found in many everyday technology devices, including smartphones, tablets and computers. They are also commonly used in software applications to enable and disable features or modes. In programming, toggles are similar to checkboxes and radio buttons, but they provide more flexibility by allowing for the selection of multiple states. For example, a toggle switch can be on and off but also in the middle position or a series of other combinations.
It is important to think through the use of toggle switches in your application when deciding whether to include them or not. It can be confusing if users are expected to press the same button repeatedly, and you should avoid creating situations where this is required. In general, toggle switches should look like sliders and utilize visual cues to prevent confusion about the current state. They should also enforce a mutually exclusive state and make the current state obvious to users by using clear labels, color and movement.
When implementing toggles in your application, it is important to understand that they require database calls every time the switch is pressed. This can increase the load on your production environment, especially if there are many toggles. To minimize this load, you should keep the number of toggles that exist in production to a minimum and ensure they are only being used by valid users.
For testing purposes, toggles can be very useful in separating the effects of different code paths on user experience. For example, an e-commerce company may wish to determine which of two suggestion algorithms is most effective at helping users complete their orders. They can add an experiment toggle to their configurator that splits users into cohorts and then routes the cohorts down one of two codepaths. This allows the company to measure how each algorithm performs without modifying the core product.
Toggles can be very powerful tools for supporting dev teams as they write new features. However, it is important to use them responsibly and limit the scope of a feature toggle to as few states as possible. Otherwise, a toggle can become a mess for the team to manage. It can also be a nightmare to debug weeks or even months down the road when it starts to impact other parts of the system.
If you decide to implement a feature toggle, it is best practice to use an external service to handle the configuration. This will ensure that the toggle is only accessible by valid users and that you can easily roll back to a previous state. In addition, you can control how the toggle is displayed and whether it has a description of its effect. This will help your team and users understand what each toggle is doing. This will also make it easier to track and analyze the effectiveness of your experiment results.
