Choosing a Default That Does the Right Thing

The first default beats the user’s first decision. The longer it persists, the more users you affect — and the more you should sweat the choice.

For privacy-affecting toggles, the default should be the conservative option. For productivity features, the default should be the one that demonstrates the value of the feature.

Test your defaults: if 80% of users change them, the default is wrong. If 80% keep them, the default is doing real work.