A toggle is a button or control that allows users to make an action based on one of two states. It is found in almost every aspect of computing when there are options or preferences, and it can also be applied to other objects like form fields. In a design sense, toggles need to have a clear action oriented label and it’s important to think about contrast and cultural implications when choosing the color that indicates state.

Some use cases for toggles are more practical than others, and it’s important to be aware of the limitations when applying this feature to your designs. For example, collapsible toggles may be a useful way to organize article content to minimize scrolling but they can’t be used to hide sent messages. If you’re looking to provide this type of functionality it would be better to consider a modal instead of a toggle.

Operational Toggles

A lot of applications have features that are locked behind a paywall or otherwise only available to premium subscribers. Adding an operation toggle to your application can help you manage the complexity of these features by temporarily disabling non-essential functionality during periods of high latency or other system issues. Most operational toggles don’t stay active for very long, but they’re a great way to test new features before rolling them out to all users.

Using feature toggles as part of your development process supports more agile approaches to software creation. Typically, new features would go into code branches under waterfall processes and require a lengthy testing and QA cycle before you could incorporate them back into trunk code. Using feature toggles allows you to push new features into production even while they’re still in the early stages of development and give you more flexibility when scheduling releases.