How Default Settings Shape Experience & Why Changing Them Feels Threatening
Two people open the same app.
For the first user, it's a seamless experience. The interface anticipates their needs. Buttons appear exactly where they expect. Workflows feel intuitive. The entire experience feels designed specifically for them—because it was.
For the second user, it's a completely different story. Basic tasks require complex workarounds. Features are hidden in unintuitive places. Error messages appear seemingly at random. What takes the first user a single tap requires the second user to navigate through multiple screens and options.
Same app. Different interfaces. Different experiences.
This isn't just a design failure. It's a perfect metaphor for how our society functions.
Life itself presents radically different interfaces depending on who you are. And understanding UX design principles can explain exactly why some people navigate social systems effortlessly while others face constant, exhausting friction.
The Invisible Interface of Advantage
As someone who's spent my career in technology and UX design, I've become obsessed with how system architecture shapes human experience—not just in apps and websites, but in our social structures, institutions, and daily interactions.
Good UX design is invisible. When a system is designed for you, you don't notice the thousand small conveniences built into your experience. You don't thank the designer for putting the button exactly where your thumb naturally falls. You don't celebrate when things just work.
This is precisely how societal advantage functions.
The people for whom our social systems were optimized rarely notice how the interface smooths their path. They don't wake up grateful for not being followed in stores, for being taken seriously in meetings, or for having their pain properly addressed by doctors.
These advantages are invisible to them—just as good UX is invisible to the primary user it was designed for.
But when a system isn't designed with you in mind? You notice every single point of friction.
People in marginalized groups navigate a world full of hostile interface elements—interactions with authorities, hiring managers, loan officers, healthcare providers—all designed with default expectations and assumptions that create constant friction. Every day requires extra cognitive load to navigate spaces not optimized for their existence.
The Expertise Gap: How Friction Creates Resilience
Here's the fascinating paradox I've been thinking about deeply: The very friction that creates barriers also creates fortification.
When people have to navigate systems that weren't designed for them, they develop extraordinary skills and awareness. They become power users by necessity, mastering complex workarounds and developing heightened situational awareness just to accomplish what others achieve effortlessly.
I see this in technology all the time. Users with disabilities often become the most sophisticated users of software because they've had to learn every shortcut, every alternative pathway, every system override. They understand the software at a deeper level than those who only engage with its surface features.
This same pattern emerges in our social systems. Those who've had to navigate around structural barriers often develop a dual consciousness—an ability to understand both their own perspective and the perspective of the dominant group. This creates a form of advanced "user knowledge" that their counterparts simply haven't had to develop.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: Many people in advantaged positions have never had to develop the skills to truly compete on functionality alone. The system has been so effectively designed for their success that they've never needed to master the interface at a deep level.
This is terrifying to realize when the system begins to change.
Think about how people react when a familiar app completely redesigns its interface. The outrage is immediate and visceral. "Where's the button? Why did they move it? The old version was better!"
Now imagine that level of resistance, but for your entire conception of reality and self-worth.
This is the root of nostalgia for "the way things used to be." This is why some desperately want to "make things great again." For them, the past version of our social operating system was easier to navigate, less threatening, more predictable. They're not just opposing progress—they're desperately trying to reinstall a familiar interface where they knew exactly how to succeed.
The past wasn't objectively better—it was better for them specifically because the system was explicitly optimized for their experience. When they say "great again," what they really mean is "predictable for me again." What they're seeking isn't greatness but the comfort of being the default user once more.
Default Settings: The Power of Being the Expected User
In technology, we design for the "expected user"—and everyone else becomes an edge case. The tragedy of our social architecture is that it was explicitly built with certain identities as the default setting and everyone else as an "edge case" to be accommodated (or not).
Default settings have tremendous power. They're what most users accept without question. They shape behavior without requiring conscious choice.
When certain identities function as society's default setting:
- Their communication styles become the assumed standard
- Their needs become the baseline around which systems are built
- Their comfort becomes the metric by which "reasonable" is defined
And just like poorly designed technology that frustrates "edge case" users, our social systems deliver fundamentally different experiences depending on who you are.
The crucial difference? Bad UX might make you abandon an app. Bad social architecture devastates lives.
The Fear of a System Upgrade
Now we come to the heart of the resistance to change: the terror of a comprehensive system update.
In a truly equitable system, one designed to provide the same quality of experience to all users, many who've relied on the current architecture would suddenly find themselves struggling. Not because they lack capacity, but because they lack practice.
The skills required to succeed in a user-neutral system are different from those needed in a preferential one:
- Instead of leveraging existing advantage, you'd need to create actual value
- Instead of benefiting from default trust, you'd need to earn credibility
- Instead of following the well-worn path, you'd need to navigate by merit alone
For someone who has never had to develop these muscles, this prospect is genuinely terrifying. It's not just about losing advantage—it's about losing the only navigation system they've ever known.
This explains the desperate resistance we see to equity initiatives in every sphere. It's not just hateful people being hateful. It's human beings facing what feels like an existential threat to their operating reality.
Designing a Better System Architecture
As a technologist, I know that systems are redesigned all the time. Bad interfaces get reimagined. Flawed architectures get rebuilt. Legacy systems get replaced.
The question isn't whether our social constructs need redesigning—they absolutely do. The question is: how do we handle the human resistance to this necessary change?
In tech, we don't just throw a new interface at users without transition. We carefully think through:
- Education — Teaching users why the new system works better
- Transition plans — Providing pathways to adapt to the new reality
- Support systems — Helping users through the difficult adjustment period
We need the same thoughtful approach to reimagining our social systems. Simply demanding people abandon their entire framework for understanding reality—without giving them tools to build a new one—is a recipe for failure.
The UX of Equity
Here's why I believe we can and must build more equitable systems:
1. Better UX benefits everyone in the long run.
Think about curb cuts, those small slopes from a sidewalk to the street. They were initially designed for wheelchair users, but they benefit everyone: parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, delivery workers with carts, even people just walking.
This is the curb-cut effect, and it applies to all well-designed systems. When we design for those who face the most friction, we often create solutions that make the experience better for everyone.
A society designed for equity doesn't mean disadvantaging previously advantaged groups—it means creating systems where nobody has to develop extraordinary workarounds just to participate.
2. Equitable design creates more robust systems.
Systems designed only for a narrow set of users are inherently fragile. They break when confronted with diversity. They fail to capture the full potential of all participants.
In contrast, systems designed for diverse users from the beginning are more adaptable, more innovative, and more resilient. This is true for software, and it's true for societies.
3. The transition is hard, but worth it.
Yes, there will be resistance. People who have only known the current system will feel threatened by change. This is natural and predictable.
But as any product designer knows, sometimes you have to redesign the interface, even when current users will initially hate it, because the old design is fundamentally limiting what's possible.
The Path Forward
Understanding social inequality as a UX problem gives us a more nuanced way to approach change. Instead of simply condemning the symptoms, we need to address the underlying system architecture.
This means:
- Acknowledging that changing default settings triggers genuine identity discomfort
- Recognizing that systemic advantage is invisible to those who have it (just like good UX)
- Creating pathways for people to develop new skills for a merit-based reality
- Building transition supports for those losing their familiar navigational frameworks
Most importantly, it means designing a new social architecture that doesn't require some groups to develop extraordinary skills just to achieve what others get by default.
For those defending the current system: I understand that change feels threatening. When these constructs are the only reality you've known, equality can feel like oppression. But just as we don't continue using flawed, biased algorithms once we discover their failures, we cannot continue defending social systems that systematically disadvantage entire populations.
For those fighting against these constructs: Your extraordinary navigation skills are not just survival tools—they're expertise that will be crucial in designing better systems. The dual consciousness you've developed is exactly what's needed to build something that works for everyone.
The question for all of us is simple but profound: Are we willing to upgrade our social operating system to something more equitable, even if it means learning a whole new interface?
Because unlike technology, where we can choose to keep using outdated systems, our shared society requires a common architecture. We cannot move forward until we agree on a design that works for everyone—not just the users it was originally built to serve.
As always, stay curious. Stay inspired.
Share this essay
