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Comment by Tmpod | Hacker News Reader

You mean those toggles that are very common on settings pages (i.e. in Android/iOS)? If they are colored, they are very easy to parse, imo, but it never hurts to actually write "on"/"off".

Those toggles actually mimic real hardware that used to be fairly common. I find those should be preferred over checkboxes for anything that takes immediate effect. If they don't, and you're collecting a bunch of options at once, in a form, then use checkboxes.

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Some toggles are labeled terribly as well, so it’s not clear what “on” even means. Or double negatives so it demands that extra mental cycle just for the sake of having all the sliders to the same side in the default configuration.

Oh yeah, those are just objectively awful X)

>If they are colored, they are very easy to parse

unless the colors are red and green, and the user happens to be red-green colorblind. So yes, always have text indicate on/off as well.

I thought about more then two options. For example when you have 10 TV or Radio Channels. They are numbered from 1 to 10. And only one channel can be chosen. Or for example, you can buy concert tickets, maximum is 4 per purchase. You may want radio buttons with a number from 1 to 4. Or you have to choose a color or size for a t-shirt (Mostly they look like buttons but there functionality is radio).

Unlabeled slider switches were never particularly common.

For instance, my old stereo has push button toggles, where “in” means “on” (this convention was common because of how those switches work), and three way levers with labels on two of the three positions (there’s no space to label the middle position, and it means “default”.

I remember them on mp3-Player, Walkmans, Microphones and even Mobile-Phones. Usually on device that you want to lock or particularly turn on and off. And sometimes you have to push them hard with the help of your Fingernail.

Often enough they are on some websites settings, with (almost) no color, but labelled with imperatives. Option X: "activate". Do I press to activate, or is it already on?

> If they are colored, they are very easy to parse

Relying on color to make something easy to parse is an awesome accessibility choice.

They can be colored and adapt to accessability settings, including color corrections for different types of colorblindness or other impairments. All the toggle designs I've seen in the wild also have the space to write "on"/"off", a check/cross, etc.

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