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In this article we’ll explore how to use toggles to easily enable/disable features in an app without editing the source code and the benefits of keeping them separate from the main app. We’ll also discuss the challenges that can arise from toggling and how to avoid them.
When using toggles it is important to provide clear labels that clearly describe what the switch will do when turned on or off. This is especially important in cases where the toggle is used for settings or other types of data entry that requires immediate results. Toggle switches should also be designed to look like sliders and utilize visual cues (i.e., movement and color changes) to prevent users from misunderstanding their purpose.
In addition to ensuring that toggle switches are easy to understand it is also necessary to provide a system for managing the configuration of a toggle. Approaches such as hardcoding the toggle configuration in static files can become cumbersome at a certain scale and can require that we consistently re-deploy code to flip a flag which can have a negative impact on validation cycles and the all-important feedback loop provided by CI/CD. In these cases we recommend exploring more dynamic methods of managing toggle configuration such as exposing an endpoint which allows for in-memory re-configuration at runtime.
