In intake calls, publishers often say the app “remembers what you chose.” In sessions, testers discover that an update, a cache clear, or a permission reset has put every toggle back to the factory value. They describe this as the app forgetting them, not as a technical reset.
We now ask, during the control map, a blunt question of the build: which values survive a restart, which survive an update, and which survive clearing storage. The answers go on the map in three columns. Many maps have empty cells in the second and third columns.
Testers do not use those words. They say “it went back.” In a file-manager study, a tester who had turned on hidden files found them gone after an update. She did not reopen settings. She assumed the files themselves had been deleted and stopped using the app for a week.
Remembered preferences need a visible place. If the only copy lives in a cache the system is allowed to throw away, you do not have a preference. You have a default that lasts until Tuesday. A backup of settings, even a simple export file the person can keep, changes the conversation in recovery sessions.
When we write findings, we separate “the label was unclear” from “the choice did not last.” They are different failures. Mixing them in a memo makes a publisher rewrite labels when they needed to stop wiping storage.