What Is a Toggle?

Toggle is a UI control that can be used to switch between different modes or settings. This can be as simple as switching between light and dark themes on a website or as complex as changing the navigation menu of an app.

When deciding to use a toggle switch, it’s important to consider what effect it has on the user experience. A toggle switch can be visually confusing or jarring if it doesn’t match the surrounding interface, so it’s important to use consistency in design throughout the website.

In addition, the toggle’s label should be descriptive and concise. It should clearly state what will happen if the switch is changed to its on position. Lastly, it’s important to use color to indicate the switch’s current state. This can help avoid confusion, but it’s also important to consider societal and cultural implications when choosing a color. For example, using red to indicate the on position could be counterintuitive in certain cultures.

Toggles can be very effective in minimizing page length and complexity by allowing you to display content only when needed. However, this can be a double-edged sword if you’re not careful. If you toggle a large amount of content, visitors may find it difficult to navigate and read your site. Toggle elements like accordions and sidebars can help solve this problem by making your content more easily accessible to users.

Feature toggles allow developers to implement new features without the need for lengthy code branches. Typically, when you need to roll out a new feature, you’ll create a release toggle in your master codebase. This will disable the toggle while you’re working on the new feature and enable it again when it’s ready for release. This allows you to quickly iterate and test new features without reworking your existing production codebase.

There are many different uses for toggles, but they’re commonly used in web applications to provide easy access to settings or functionality. You can see examples of them all over the web, including social media sites, news sites, and blogs.

If you’re looking for a more detailed guide to creating toggles in your web applications, we suggest reading this blog post from Adrian Roselli. He provides a useful decision tree to help you decide whether you should use a toggle or a checkbox. He also discusses why the toggle element is better suited to on/off settings than the button> element and how to use toggles in right-to-left (RTL) interfaces. He even includes a simple HTML+CSS only implementation of an accessible toggle that you can try out in your own projects.