In this week's issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki, author of the instant-classic Wisdom of Crowds, looks at feature creep and why we're terrible at predicting what we really want out of a product. From his essay:

You might think... that companies could avoid feature creep by just paying attention to what customers really want. But that’s where the trouble begins, because although consumers find overloaded gadgets unmanageable, they also find them attractive. It turns out that when we look at a new product in a store we tend to think that the more features there are, the better. It’s only once we get the product home and try to use it that we realize the virtues of simplicity. A recent study by a trio of marketing academics—Debora Viana Thompson, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Roland T. Rust—found that when consumers were given a choice of three models, of varying complexity, of a digital device, more than sixty per cent chose the one with the most features. Then, when the subjects were given the chance to customize their product, choosing from twenty-five features, they behaved like kids in a candy store. (Twenty features was the average.) But, when they were asked to use the digital device, so-called “feature fatigue” set in. They became frustrated with the plethora of options they had created, and ended up happier with a simpler product.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Surowiecki: Brands aren't worth as much as we thought Link
• ETECH Notes: Surowiecki on Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds Link