Toggle is a user-interface control that enforces an on/off state. It can be used to change settings, content, or other types of information on a website or app. Toggles are easy for users to understand, provide a clear visual representation of their current state, and deliver immediate results.
Toggles are a great way to test software features with a controlled approach similar to what would have been performed on code branches under more traditional waterfall development models. This means that you can deploy new features to a small percentage of your users for testing and market research before releasing them to all users.
One of the best practices is to keep your inventory of toggles as low as possible, using them sparingly. It’s also important to have a process in place for vetting whether toggles are the right method to solve your problem and to remove them from production as soon as they’ve run their course. This reduces the amount of code cleanup your team has to do and keeps their workload at a reasonable level.
Another good practice is to name your toggles clearly and descriptively so that everyone on your team knows what they’re managing when a toggle appears in their error messages. This can help them understand who wrote the toggle, how long it’s been in the codebase, and what the toggle does. It’s not required to do this but it can make things much easier for your team to manage.
