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Should a toggle button show its current state or the state to which it will change?
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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Toggles should not exist. They should be check boxes. Checked if "ON", unchecked if "OFF" with a mouse over tooltip if there is any chance that it's ambiguous.
The case that undermines your point is icon toggles, since they don't need a label, but a checkbox does. For example, dark mode icon buttons: They usually show sun or moon icons, which hits OP's point: if your in dark mode, and the button shows a moon, that would make sense -- except the button doesn't put you into dark mode, at that point it puts you into light mode, so, shouldn't it show the sun?
In the specific case of a dark mode, it doesn't matter since the whole aspect of the app changes. You could not label the individual states and it'd be fine.
Also, as soon as you add another theme it does no longer work, for a theme selector you need a drop-down selector which lists all the themes.
That's true, you can't really miss what's happening with a dark mode switch -- it's not like it's a "charge me $50 extra for insurance on my shredded wheat" button.
The theme selector tho -- while rare -- IDK, that doesn't have have text -- it probably should, for the same if a11y, but you can indicate the theme with an image; the one I made for a project recently uses the image itself on the button.