Feature Creep or Why You Shouldn't Give People What They Want
How many types of dry do you need?
Feature creep is term that came from software development where it was used to describe software that over-emphasizes new features at the expense of core functionality and design imperatives.
It contravenes the primary rule of the Unix philosophy for writing programs:
do one thing and do it well
But it has spread outside of software and is most encountered in technology products that build in so many features it actually makes the products harder to use.
It's a symptom of the paradox of choice - people think they want loads of features, because we think we like choice, but actually we hate it.
As James "Wisdom of Crowds" Surowiecki points out:
The strange truth about feature creep is that even when you give consumers what they want they can still end up hating you for it.
The solution is not to give consumers what they think they want:
We don't ask consumers what they want. They don't know. Instead we apply our brainpower to what they need, and will want, and make sure we're there, ready.
Akio Morita, Founder of Sony
That machine should have a drier than you can possibly imagine option.
Posted by:John Dodds | March 20, 2008 at 12:39 AM
Damp Dry. So you mean not dry. Like wet.
Posted by:Sam | March 20, 2008 at 02:06 AM
Damn choices. We position ourselves to have more of them and then complain when we have to make them.
Any chance I can give up independent thought and free will (could be an oxymoron, not sure) and have some sort of collective intelligence (like the interweb) make my mind up about stuff for me. Or even better, get marketing types to do it for me. Or even better than that. Faris.. could you make all my decisions for me?
Posted by:D | March 20, 2008 at 09:27 AM
Damp Dry means you can iron your shirts with ease. You mean you don't iron your shirts? maybe Bosch etc. should invent two extremes of White Goods. One for the Perfect Housewife and one for the Young Bachelor with one "does the job" button?
Posted by:Helen Andelin | March 20, 2008 at 10:01 AM
As Henry Ford once noted...
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Posted by:James Devon | March 20, 2008 at 10:32 AM
Ah man, James beat me to it ... Here is Steve Jobs repeating Ford's sentiment: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/2.html
Posted by:Noah Brier | March 20, 2008 at 11:31 AM
I'm pretty sure this is also why you should never allow Homer Simpson to design a car.
Posted by:Jess | March 20, 2008 at 05:10 PM
I had the same dryer. 'Air fluff' on the other dial is really good.
Posted by:Coops | March 21, 2008 at 01:41 PM