Toggle is a control that can be switched between two states (ON or OFF) and is often used for changing system settings and preferences. They can be more effective than radio buttons because they take up less screen estate and have a pre-selected default state. Toggles also offer better user feedback than checkboxes and have a clearer distinction between the ON and OFF states.

However, toggles are not always the best choice for all situations — in particular, they can be cognitively confusing. This is because they don’t contain any text on or off and instead rely on visual cues to tell users what state it’s in. Unfortunately, these visual cues are often confused or misinterpreted by users. For example, many designers use colors to indicate the current state of a toggle. This is a poor design choice as color can be misleading, especially for users with color vision deficiency.

In addition, using toggles to change a feature requires a lot of if-else statements which makes maintaining these features challenging. To avoid this, most organizations move their toggle configuration to some type of centralized store, usually an existing application DB or external feature flag service. They may also build out some form of admin UI that allows product managers, system operators and testers to manage their toggles and their configuration.

Toggles are not an ideal interface element for all situations, but they can be a great solution for some, especially when you need to hide content. To learn more, read our article about Using Toggles.