What is a Toggle?

A toggle is a switch that can be turned on or off. It is commonly used in technology, computing and programming to provide users with a way to switch between two states or options.

Toggles are a valuable tool in the continuous development process. They allow your engineering team to experiment with new features in a real-world environment before they are fully rolled out to your entire user base. Feature toggles can also be used to roll back features which may have bugs or are being tested negatively by select users.

When designing toggles make sure to provide clear and direct labels. They should be easy to click or tap and deliver immediate results. Avoid using toggles with form elements which require multiple steps to select, such as dropdowns or radio buttons. These are more difficult to use for people with screen readers or other assistive technologies, and can confuse users.

Be aware that some platforms may not support the use of toggles for certain functionality. For example, some platforms do not allow for the use of toggles to hide content. For these situations, consider using other mechanisms to hide or show content, such as subscriber group containers and spoiler tags. This article is available to Grandmaster subscribers and above. Toggle visibility is an easy way to make areas of your articles private or public at a moment’s notice without editing the article. However, content hidden using this method is not actually removed from the article and anyone with knowledge of examining the source code of your website can still see it.