A toggle is a switch that has two positions, on and off. It can be used to control the state of an application or software feature. When it is in the on position, it shows the user that the feature is enabled and functioning properly. When the toggle is in the off position, it shows that the feature is disabled and not functioning at all.
Toggles are often a better alternative to radio buttons when it comes to changing system settings or preferences. They take up less screen real estate and have a clearly defined on/off state. However, they are not without their challenges when it comes to UI design. It is important that you pick the right visual signifier for the toggle’s state and consider any societal or cultural implications of using certain colors (e.g. red for on) in your designs. In addition, it is always a good idea to provide users with a clear explanation of what the toggle does and what happens when it is pressed or unpressed.
Using toggles in your applications can help you test new features with users without putting the rest of your users at risk. By creating a toggle that buckets your users into two groups—one with the feature and one without it—you can run A/B tests with real users in a production environment. Then, if necessary, you can remotely roll back the feature.
It is important to keep in mind that toggles have a limited lifecycle and need to be proactively managed. Too many idle toggles will confuse your users and can increase the amount of work that goes into maintaining and debugging your code. To avoid this, make sure you have a process for pruning toggles as soon as they are no longer needed.
