A toggle is a switch that allows you to shift between two states or options. It is often used in technology, computing and programming to enable or disable certain features. For example, you can use a toggle to turn on or off your WiFi or Bluetooth connections. In web development, toggles can be used to enable or disable navigation menus or sidebars based on the screen size of the device or browser being used.
Toggles are very useful for creating responsive designs. They can be used to hide or show various content elements based on the screen size, device and orientation of the user. This makes it easy to create a consistent experience across different types of devices and screen sizes without having to rewrite your code base for each platform.
Aside from their ability to enhance responsive design, toggles can also be used to implement adaptive experiences. Toggles can be used to allow users to choose between light and dark themes, allowing them to customize the appearance of their application to suit their own preferences. They can also be used to implement a more advanced dynamic theme system, allowing developers to create and store multiple themes that can be applied depending on the environment.
Another way that toggles are being used is to help with A/B testing and multivariate experiments. When a new feature is being tested, it can be difficult to know whether or not the change will have a positive or negative impact on the conversion rate. By using a toggle, developers can control which users see the new feature and which do not, making it easier to determine the effect of the change on the overall conversion rate.
Many teams use a centralized system for managing the configuration of their feature toggles, usually through an existing application DB. This allows for quick and easy modification of the toggles during testing without having to redeploy an artifact. It also makes it much easier to share the configuration of a toggle between team members.
When creating a toggle, it is important to be clear about what each state does and the effect it will have on the system. It is also important to consider the labels for each toggle switch as they can have an impact on the user’s understanding of what they are doing. It is often a good idea to use descriptive labels for each toggle rather than ambiguous words like “on” or “off”.
When working with feature toggles, it can be important to plan ahead and think about how the toggles will be configured in production. Some teams have a policy of adding a task to the backlog for removing the toggle once it has been flipped off, while others put expiration dates on their toggles so that they are automatically removed at a predetermined time.