According to the so-called “default effect”, people tend to choose options that do not require an active decision. In interface design, defaults can pursue different goals: they can save users time, automatically adopt resource-saving settings, or lead them to choose options that are profitable for companies. Dark patterns in the design of interfaces can also ensure that users are manipulated into making decisions they do not necessarily want to make, for example by highlighting certain options or deliberately hiding important information.
Such defaults do not only occur in interface design, but also in other areas such as medicine: in organ donation, in some countries the default option is set so that organs are not donated as long as there is no active consent; in other countries, organs are donated automatically as long as there is no objection. This default rule can increase the number of donors many times over, which can ultimately lead to more lives being saved.
Using the website of the Deutsche Bahn as an example, I examine the use of defaults and dark patterns in ticket searches on bahn.de. I then consider what this ticket search could look like from a profit-oriented and environmentally friendly perspective, and how a search without defaults would look like.