In everyday technology, toggle refers to a switch that can be used to change between two positions, on or off. It’s commonly used in technology, computing and programming applications to enable or disable features or modes.

Toggle can be a very powerful tool for teams as they work to make their product better. However, it’s important to remember that the use of a toggle requires care and thought. Using it incorrectly can result in confusing, misleading or frustrating experiences for users. To avoid such problems, teams should ensure that toggle switches are clearly labelled and that they provide clear visual cues about their purpose.

For example, if a toggle is used to download content it’s essential that this is well labelled. Downloading is a one-time action that ends once the toggle is turned off so using a switch to download can mislead users. Similarly, toggles can be confusing if they’re used to control functionality which is only active once a certain condition is met. For instance, a toggle that enables a user’s account to be automatically logged out after a period of inactivity should be clearly labelled and utilize a clear on/off action to avoid confusion.

For more complex toggles many teams will opt to move them into some sort of centralized toggle configuration store. This can range from a simple commenting approach to the use of an existing application DB to support dynamic re-configuration. Typically, this is accompanied by some form of admin UI that allows team members (like Dev Ops, Product Managers and Testers) to view and modify the toggles they manage.