Tools
2 min read
Defaults Are Decisions
Most people never change a setting. That makes whoever picks the default the most powerful designer in the room.
By Mara Ellison · Lisbon
Most people will never open your settings page, which means your defaults are the product. A default is a decision made once, by a few people, on behalf of everyone who comes after. It deserves more care than it usually gets.[1]
The quiet majority
In every product I have worked on, the share of people who changed any setting at all was small. For those people, the settings page is a gift. For everyone else, it is invisible, and the default is simply how the tool behaves.
Choosing well
A good default is safe, reversible and a little conservative. It protects the person who does not know the option exists. Then it gets out of the way of the person who does.[2]
A checklist I use
Would I be comfortable if everyone kept this forever?
Does it protect someone who never reads the settings?
Can it be changed in one step once someone cares?[3]
Notes
Economists call this the default effect. Designers mostly call it launch day.
Privacy settings are the obvious example, but font size and notification settings matter just as much.
If the answer to the first question is no, it is not a default. It is a bet.
Written by
Mara Ellison
Product designer in Lisbon. Writes about quiet software, attention and the slow craft of making things.
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