The Confusing State of Toggle Switches

UX Movement
3 min readJul 25, 2019

Most users know how to toggle the switches on electrical devices, but get confused with the interface ones. They often have trouble discerning whether a switch is indicating a status or command. If the switch is “on,” users could interpret it as the current state, or as the action that occurs when they toggle it.

Indicating Status

It’s not always clear to users that toggle switches signify the current state. This confusion happens when there are on/off labels, green/red colors, or checkmarks on them. These cues produce high…

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