
On/Off Switches in User Interfaces - joshuacc
http://mattgemmell.com/2011/11/01/on-off-switches/
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kamkha
Personally, I can't think of a situation which calls for one of these
potentially ambiguous sliders over, say, a checkbox.

The imitation that the author is critiquing is poorly designed in my eyes, but
even the iOS original is a bit ambiguous to me. Is the label on the button
that of the current state, or of the state that the switch would attain if
pressed? It's the former in the iOS control, but I could definitely see people
getting confused over that.

On a different note, here's a screenshot of the same iOS slider in a different
locale (posted in the comments on the article): <http://d.pr/VHZF>. Maybe it's
the fact that "|" and "O" aren't often used to mean "on" and "off" in my
English locale, but that just looks unpleasing to me.

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markbernard
Since he doesn't allow comments, I will comment here.

While I agree with the author's comment that the switch is ambiguous, I
disagree with his perception of the current state. To my mind the switch shown
is a rocker switch that has the off side currently pressed. But that just
shows how bad it is since different people see different things.

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edoloughlin
tl;dr: The author critiques a poor imitation of the iOS on/off toggle.

