Re: Preferences versus defaults

[Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

Debra Graham wrote:
> 
> I've not had occasion to reflect on the differences between preferences and
> defaults, until today when I was asked to create a job aid on "setting
> default preferences on the Auto Carry Forward Config page."
> 
> The term "default preferences" seems redundant to me and I began wondering
> whether there was a difference between a default and a preference.  At
> first, I thought perhaps one applies to behavior and the other applies to
> values?  But that distinction didn't seem to hold—default behavior and
> default values both make sense to me.  Then I started thinking about
> options, settings, and so forth, and quickly became overwhelmed (well, not
> really overwhelmed but realized that I didn't have time to explore the
> various "options").
> 

I think this is yet another case for that all-purpose
Techwr-l answer: it depends.

A quick distinction usually would be that "defaults" are
settings in the product that are used if the user makes
no changes, and "preferences" are the option values that
the user sets. However, sometimes options are grouped in
a category called "preferences." In that case, you could
have "default preferences," which would be the values
for the preference options set by the system.

Equivocally yours,
Janice

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