Default filter state: active vs. inactive?
Consider the following scenario:
- The user goes on a restaurant search page in an app
- He/she enters some information, then clicks on "Filter results"
- There he/she finds the possibility to filter by price level.
Which, would you say, is the better default state? A or B? And Why?
Of course, by default all results should be visible, no selection. But how does this look?
- A: All price ranges are visually "active / on"
- B: All price ranges are visually "inactive / off"
Most Sites I looked at, chose B (Tripadvisor, Yelp,…)
But I would argue A would actually make more sense as B has the following inconsistency:
- When all of the options are active, I see all the results.
- When one of the options is active, I see only that one result.
- When none of the options is active, I still see all the results.
The screen on the right would be what a user sees when he/she either deactivates the third chip (when coming from A) or activates the first two chips (when coming from B).
