Good defaults beat good settings

A tool with great defaults respects your time. A tool with great settings respects its own complexity.

Why this matters today

Defaults are decisions the designer makes so the user doesn't have to. They are the highest form of craft and the hardest to get right.

Every setting is a question the designer refused to answer.

In practice

Here is the part that turns theory into a habit:

• Start small — a single file, a single page, a single test.
• Measure twice. Trust the numbers, not the vibe.
• Keep an undo path. Reversible decisions buy you courage.

A note on tooling

Every tool on this site runs in your browser unless we say otherwise. That changes the trade-offs: nothing to upload, nothing to retain, nothing to leak. The downside is a small ceiling on file size and a dependency on your device's CPU — both acceptable for most editorial workflows.

Takeaway

Configure rarely. Ship sane defaults always.