Simple websites are better than beautiful ones. I'll repeat that for the folks in the back. Simple websites are better than beautiful ones. Let me be clear what I mean by a simple website. I don't mean a Wordpress site with a minimalist theme. I also don't mean a Substack …
There was a thread elsewhere asking whether a toggle should show current state or the state desired. There was enough disagreement that it quickly became apparent that, whatever else the toggle does, there should be something external to the toggle showing the possible states, indicating which way to move the toggle regardless of toggle appearance.
The disagreement was actually all over whether the question was about a switch or a button, and so some people were answering as though it was a switch, and some people were answering as though it was a button - switches and buttons do indeed have opposite approaches usually (a switch usually shows the current state - such as “on” - but a button shows what action will be triggered by pressing it, such as “play”).
Oops! I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention.
That’s ok - a lot of people weren’t.
that post is about toggle buttons, not switches. e.g. a play pause button, when pressed, does it show play, or does it show pause?
Oops! I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention.
still, people are clearly confused by the button. I’m just gonna make it an animation and prefers-color-scheme since that’s so widely supported now.
there it is
It really depends on the type of control and what it’s controlling. As this is a switch, you’d expect the current state to be what’s shown on the same side as the slider-- in this case, the slider is a sun in dark mode and a moon in light mode, which is the opposite way.
The designer team once did a toggle button with the inverse logic and I was so confused when I had to implement that. It must be my antithesis.