Toggle – Using Toggle Switches Properly
Toggle is a digital trade journal highlighting the vital role technology plays in organizations and companies across all industry sectors, as well as the men and women who make it work. We look at the unique challenges these tech leaders face—from data privacy and cybersecurity, to cloud solutions and artificial intelligence—and explore how they tackle them.
A toggle is a user interface control that allows a user to select between two opposing states, such as on/off or pass/fail. Toggles are commonly used for updating preferences, settings and other types of information. When properly implemented, toggle switches are straightforward to use and deliver immediate results. However, when misused, they can create confusion and annoyance for users. To avoid this, designers should provide direct labels and utilize standard visual design to prevent confusion and ambiguity.
Feature toggles allow engineering teams to test new features on a subset of their users before rolling out the changes to all users. By putting a feature under a toggle, the team can easily turn it on for beta testers to validate the features in a real-world environment without risking their users’ experience and allowing engineers to remotely roll back any changes that may not be working as expected.
It’s important to note that not all elements can be toggled with a visibility toggle, including article sections created by template specific prompt fields and the article vignette. Additionally, toggles do not work with dynamic content such as spoilers that are loaded on demand or mention links to other articles.