A toggle lets people manage the state of a setting, view or content. It has a clear UI with a recognizable icon and changes in color to indicate its current state. It also provides a clear label to describe what the toggle does or doesn’t do. Often, these labels also include a description of what will happen when the toggle is set to a particular state.

A toggle can be found in many everyday technology devices and software applications. Toggle switches are used to turn features on or off, switch between different display modes and even enable or disable settings.

When designing a toggle, it’s important to ensure that the control is clearly and consistently identified to avoid confusion. In addition to using a recognizable icon, designers should consider the contrast of colors and their societal and cultural implications. Additionally, it’s a good idea to use visual cues like animation and changing color states to communicate the toggle’s state to users.

Toggles are also an important tool for supporting agile development and testing models. By applying feature toggles to codebases, teams can hide new features until they are ready for release and market testing. This prevents those features from being pushed into production prior to completion and allows teams to continue releasing software on a regular basis.

Toggle configuration can be managed through a number of different mechanisms, ranging from static files that require manual modification through to more advanced approaches that allow for dynamic re-configuration in a production environment. While these approaches have their merits they can be cumbersome when dealing with a large number of toggles or for environments that require a high degree of agility.