A toggle is a switch that allows a user to change an existing state of a system functionality. Toggles are the preferable control for adjusting settings on mobile because they require less screen estate than two radio buttons and have a clear default state (either ON or OFF).
When used well, toggles can be a powerful tool for providing configuration options to users. However, they can also be confusing if not carefully considered and designed.
Toggles should be used sparingly and only when it makes sense to give the user control over a specific set of options. This is because a toggle is a form of interaction that takes the attention of the user away from other important actions on the page.
For this reason, it is important to provide good labels for toggles so the user can quickly understand what action will be performed when the toggle is flipped to the ON position. The labels should be short and direct and include a verb which indicates the desired action.
It is also important to avoid overly complicated toggle logic, which may cause confusion in shared development environments. In general, it’s best to keep feature flag toggle configuration in a separate place from code (ideally in some kind of centralized config store) so that teams can modify and test them more easily and without having to wait for the whole release cycle to complete. For the same reasons, it is often helpful to perform tests with all toggles flipped On and Off so that teams can ensure that future releases don’t break existing or important features.
