Toggle is a button or switch that allows a user to update settings and preferences in an electronic, mechanical, or computer-related system. In software applications, toggles are a form of binary control that can either turn a feature on or off, or enable or disable an option.
Toggles help teams manage the deployment of new features by acting as circuit breakers in a continuous development workflow. This is especially important when building large scale applications where it can be difficult to predict how a new feature will be received by users before full rollout. Toggle configuration can be stored in static files or in some type of centralized DB which makes managing them at scale much easier.
Using standard visual design principles, such as clear labeling, simple UI elements and consistent layouts can improve the user experience of a toggle interface. For example, using high-contrast colors to represent on/off states is important because it increases the visibility of the state change. It is also important to consider cultural and societal context when choosing the color of the on/off state as some cultures may associate certain colors with different meanings or consequences.
Toggle names should be descriptive and short. This will make it easy for anyone on your team to understand what the toggle does and its current state. It is also important to not allow multiple toggles to overlap each other in your codebase. This can be confusing for the rest of your team and can lead to bugs that will take weeks or months to debug.
