What Is a Toggle Switch?

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A toggle switch is a user-interface element that allows a single control to change states from one state to another. When using this type of control, it’s important to consider user experience. For example, a toggle switch should be designed to deliver clear and direct labels and provide visual cues that indicate when a toggle’s state has changed. Additionally, the toggle should be positioned in the interface to prevent users from accidentally activating it or clicking on it when it is not intended to.

Savvy teams use feature toggles to roll out/back features during code deployment cycles. They can be used to test the impact of a change before committing it to production. Typically, these toggles live side-by-side with the master release in source code management tools.

For example, an e-commerce company wants to know whether their configurator’s two different suggestion algorithms perform better. They create an experiment toggle on the configurator, and when it is activated the system will consistently send each user down one of the two paths. After three weeks the team has conclusive data showing that the B algorithm results in more completed orders, so they remove the experiment toggle and deploy the B algorithm for all users.