A toggle is a switch that allows you to turn something on or off. There are lots of examples of this in both hardware and software, for example the Caps Lock or Num Lock keys on keyboards are toggles that turn specific functions on or off. There are also many applications of this in websites where you can hide sections or items.

When using a toggle to hide content, it’s important to make sure that you’re only hiding content that isn’t essential for the user experience. For example, some articles will include a table of contents and vignette which are not intended to be hidden. Also, you’ll want to consider whether the toggle makes it easier or harder for users to find your content.

Using toggles in an accessible way

One of the most common problems with toggles is that they are often inaccessible to users with accessibility needs. For example, some developers use colors to represent “on” or “off”, but this can be a big problem for users with red/green color blindness or other forms of color vision deficiency.

Another common issue is that it can be difficult to change a toggle’s configuration at runtime if the implementation uses hardcoded comments or preprocessor features like #ifdef. This can have a significant impact on the speed of deployment and validation for your product and negatively affects the feedback loop that CI/CD provides. A solution to this is to use a service like Kameleon that will read the toggle’s configuration at runtime and enable or disable it remotely without code deployment.