Post

qntm
@qntm.org

Making something a configurable option does not void your responsibility to assign a good default value

6 reposts36 likes

qntm
@qntm.org

I learned this lesson on an old website where we allowed users to create custom CSS stylesheets for the entire experience as a get-out clause to avoid actually designing the site

qntm
@qntm.org

Making something a configurable option is actually MORE WORK because the amount of work involved in selecting the appropriate default value is a fixed constant and doesn't go away when you add the option

qntm
@qntm.org

Even if you allow the buyer to name their own price you still have the power to put a default price in the box for them. And this matters. If you default to $0 you'll get $0 every time. But if you default to something fair then you'll get a lot of people accepting that default

William Nelson
@boogers.io

On the subject of defaults, the weirdest tech support call I ever had was from a very sweet accountant. Long story short, she misunderstood what "default" meant, and every time she was presented with a default option, she intentionally picked something else to avoid default. It was a mess.