My No.1 interview question for UX developers:

What are the CSS default text and background colours?

The correct answer is: "undefined-on-undefined".

If your 1st thought was "black-on-white", you're the reason we can't have nice things.

Css has defaults? 🤯

White on black should be the default

It's the fucking default user-agent css! How can it be undefined??

so... you reject good talent over this? ~.^

So what you are saying is the browser sets the values, right?

The default values are 'inital' 😎

What is the default tag for a developer rant? If your answer is "devrant", you're the reason why we can't have nice things.

My first thought was "who gives a shit". It was also my last thought.

@24th-Dragon some properties do have "unset", tho

I believe the correct answer is "initial" on "initial".

@pingu "Undefined" is often system-designer speak for "we don't care what the implementation does." In other words, in the case of CSS, it's browser-specific, and all browsers defaulting to the same thing isn't guaranteed. In the case of things like C++, it means that your code might do different things if you use different compilers.

TL;DR: It's defined, just by other people.

@powerfulparadox it is unset, if I recall correctly

@karma Which is equivalent, I think, depending on the context. I see little difference between "I haven't defined this" and "there is no set default" but maybe I'm missing something.

@powerfulparadox then maybe import the css file 😅😂🤣

@pingu It isn't undefined, it's unspecified.

@Fast-Nop In this context the terms are equivalent. Both mean that the spec isn't telling the browser what to do so the browser can do whatever it wants and the designer shouldn't count on a particular behavior.

While I support encouraging use of the proper terminology, reading this thread has led me to one of two conclusions: either we can't agree on what the proper term is or people are trolling with synonyms. Either way, the terms being used are functionally equivalent in this context, so we should all agree we understand the basic point and agree to get along. 😇

@powerfulparadox Undefined would be that the browser can do anything it wants while unspecified limits the free behaviour to the choice of a colour.

@Fast-Nop Okay, but undefined in the context of color selection is not likely to lead to the browser doing anything other than choosing a color, because browser programmers are not complete sadists. They would be bombarded with bug reports if the browser did anything else, anyway. Again, I maintain that while correctness is important we're not really losing anything in terms of understanding with any of the terms in this thread.

(I find myself in a strange position here. Usually I'm the one on the side of pedantry.)

@PaladinRevenant I'd accept that.

@cfood It says everything I need to know. Not understanding basic principles of what one does means one started to learn in the middle and went both ways from there, never tested their work thoroughly and tend to promote false assumptions. I don't want that in my team, obviously though, most people are like that... That's why I never said I estimate them on that question alone but I use it to force reaction to criticism, to hear what kind of arguments people use to explain themselves, to see if they're eager to learn or stuck in a box, if they're shocked, if they get angry easily, if they accept that our tests will often show results they don't expect making them work on the same UI again and again until it works on all supported devices, and finally, if they'll be able to work with a difference in values instead of a value itself. Readability is a major part of UX. If it changes over devices and somebody's not willing to fix it I can't work with them.

From a perspective of a year I must admit I'm coming back to your comments more often than I thought I would. And I no longer say it's "the answer", I think I explain it better now. Results are still suboptimal, as in: 9 out of 10 people think CSS has default font and background colour, but sometimes - just sometimes - I get an: "Oh, yeah, assuming colours was silly of me, I'm glad I'll be learning here".

@ostream Well, it's a designer who gets paid to also do the analysis, the research, A/B testing and all that stuff. 🤷‍♂️ Not my idea, google it.

@ostream More or less, yes, but it's not that uncommon to cover tasks that don't exactly fit your job description - I think you shouldn't get attached to your title too firmly. IT is very fluid in general. Doing only what you want is a luxury that rarely stands in reality of limited budget.