A toggle is a switch that allows users to switch between two states or options. It is commonly used in technology, computing, programming, and communications.

Toggles are a key component of responsive design, especially for UI elements like navigation menus and sidebars. By providing an easy way for visitors to hide or show these elements based on screen size, toggles can help minimize scrolling and improve user experience.

Aside from responsive design, toggles can also be used to control other features and settings on a website or application. For example, some applications allow users to toggle between light and dark themes based on their preference for readability or aesthetics. By giving users the ability to control their experience, toggles can increase user satisfaction and retention.

Using toggles supports newer agile development models by allowing you to hide features until they’re ready for release, market testing, or other stage in their life cycle. This is an alternative to traditional code branching, which requires a significant amount of time for developers to commit and test their changes before they can be safely integrated into trunk code.

When creating toggles, it’s important to ensure that the current state is clear and that users can understand what the toggle will do in its active state. This is typically done by clearly identifying the setting, view, or content that the toggle affects, using an interface icon that communicates its purpose, and updating its appearance (e.g., background color) based on its current state.

In addition, it’s important to make sure that toggles are accessible. The best way to do this is by avoiding using text on the toggle and instead relying on visual clues (e.g., movement and colors) to communicate the status of the toggle. However, this can be a challenge since it’s not always easy to find the right visual cues.

Additionally, it’s important to keep the number of toggles in your application low. Too many toggles can become confusing for users and create a maintenance burden for your team.

It’s also important to remove old toggles as soon as they’ve run their course. Doing this will prevent unnecessary maintenance work and improve overall maintainability. To do this, set a regular schedule for pruning toggles and incorporate it into your software management tool or process. For example, you may set a monthly quota for the number of toggles that can be removed from your application. This will give your team a reasonable target to hit and will help keep your inventory of toggles down. This will also make it easier to identify and track performance issues that are related to toggles. For example, you might use an analytics tool to monitor toggle performance over time and look for trends that suggest a problem with one or more of your feature switches. You can then add a task to your next maintenance cycle to address these performance issues.