A Toggle is a button that allows users to switch between two states or options. Commonly used in technology, computing, programming and communication toggles are a great way to provide users with the ability to quickly choose from different settings or modes. They are also commonly used as a visual cue to inform the user of which state they are in – as such, toggles can help reduce confusion and improve performance.

When designing a Toggle it is important to consider the user’s perspective and the desired behaviour of the toggle. This will influence the design decisions that are made around it. In general, Toggles should be as clear and unambiguous as possible in order to ensure that users can understand the intended behaviour of the toggle. The design of the toggle should clearly indicate which state it is in and whether it is active or inactive. A simple visual cue that often works well is the use of color. For example, a red toggle usually indicates that it is active and a grey one indicates that it is inactive. It is also recommended to include a label with the toggle that communicates what it does and how to use it.

In some cases it may be necessary to create a dynamic Toggle that is configured at runtime. This can be done using various methods ranging from approaches which are more simple but less dynamic through to techniques that allow for fully dynamic configuration at runtime. For this type of toggle it is often required to have a way for the toggle configuration to be manipulated during testing and manual exploratory work.

This is especially true for Experiment Toggles which are used to perform A/B testing by sending users down one codepath or the other and tracking their behavior in order to make data-driven optimizations to the product experience. Savvy teams will consider the toggles in their codebase to be inventory which comes with a carrying cost and seek to keep this inventory as low as possible by removing toggles once they are no longer required. This can be accomplished by ensuring that a task is added to the team backlog to remove each toggle at the time it is introduced and some teams even go as far as to put expiration dates on their Toggles which will cause a test to fail if a flag has not been removed by its designated date.