A toggle is a button-like element that allows users to switch between two options, states or settings. It’s commonly used in technology, computing and programming to provide control over a feature. Generally, when a toggle is activated it enables an option or state while when it’s deactivated it disables that option or state. In more general use, the term “toggle” is also used to describe switching back and forth between programs or features on a device such as a computer, mobile phone or TV.

When a user clicks on a toggle it should immediately display the new state. This allows users to quickly understand what effect their actions have on the system and provides a sense of immediate feedback. If there’s a delay between clicking the toggle and it changing state, you may want to consider adding a progress indicator or other visual cue.

The use of toggles in interfaces requires careful attention to detail and user testing. The use of color in toggles is especially important as it can have significant societal and cultural implications. Using the wrong color can cause confusion, make it difficult to read or interpret and be counterintuitive to your audience. Additionally, the use of different icons or a combination of icon and text can be confusing for your users as it can confuse them about what is being activated and when it will be activated.

Toggle can be useful in various situations such as allowing developers to test out new features with a small segment of their audience before rolling out the change to the whole customer base, enabling them to act as circuit breakers for an application during high latency periods and providing a way to disable premium features when a user downgrades their account. However, the most common use of toggles is within application interfaces to enable and disable features based on specific user attributes such as their subscription tier.

Visibility Toggles

If you’re on a Grandmaster or higher subscription tier, you can hide sections and items in an article at a moment’s notice by clicking the eye icon next to them. The hidden content will become slightly transparent and you can click the eye again to make it visible. Note that if you’re not logged in, anyone can see the hidden content through an inspection of the source code or by browsing to the article without clicking the toggle.

Toggles are also incredibly helpful when it comes to agile development processes, as they allow teams to roll out new features without having to create separate code branches for them and then merge them into the main trunk at a later time. This can significantly reduce the amount of time a team spends debugging and testing new features.