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Some things are either on or off and, when those things aren’t on
(or off), they are invariably off (or on). The concept is so rudimentary
that I’ve only complicated it by trying to explain it, yet on/off
switches (or toggle buttons) are not all alike. Although their purpose
is simple, their applications and forms vary greatly.
In this inaugural post, I’ll be exploring what it takes to make
toggle buttons inclusive. As with any component, there’s no one way to
go about this, especially when such controls are examined under
different contexts. However, there’s certainly plenty to forget to do or
to otherwise screw up, so let’s try to avoid any of that.
Changing state
If a web application did not change according to the instructions of
its user, the resulting experience would be altogether unsatisfactory.
Nevertheless, the luxury of being able to make web documents augment
themselves instantaneously, without recourse to a page refresh, has not
always been present.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way we decided that accessible [...]