Featurism
Featurism (of English .: feature , characteristic) generally denotes the integration of numerous additional functions in a technical product or software. Specifically, the term refers to a production and marketing strategy that concentrates on easy-to-implement, in scope and cost-limited expansion of products or offers through additional features and functions and is intended to offer the customer additional customer benefit compared to the often questionable increase in benefit but should achieve a disproportionate income with low investments.
Today, featurism is a widespread growth strategy in the development of software (see Zawinski's Law ) , computer games and business electronics , but also in financial services; one also speaks of a of release to release "creeping" featurism ( creeping featurism ) wss ever more powerful processors and memory requires. Featurism can lead to overly complex products, bloated and slow-running software and a flood of software versions or plug-ins released at short intervals .
Also in the manufacturing industry, e.g. B. in the automotive industry, featurism in the form of additional equipment is common. In the clothing industry one speaks z. B. from an increased "visual quality", which is achieved by a few additional work steps and low use of additional material (quilted edges, decorative applications, breast pocket, double cuffs). In view of accelerated product life cycles, a critical mass in the market often has to be achieved in the shortest possible time. Here, featurism often replaces real product innovation and / or suggests higher product quality. Often it only increases the image of products. Such a marketing-driven feature product design is often criticized because it is based on an unrealistic customer image and a largely fictitious customer benefit that the customer often cannot realize. In this respect, it is an expression of a misunderstood striving for profiling. Quasi-monopolists like Microsoft or Apple , however, find it easy to continually integrate new features into their products and thus stimulate sales.
The featurism in production has been made easier since the 1980s through automation and modularly designed products. At the same time, a move away from the mass markets began. However, studies show that market success does not depend on featurism. The opposite, often successful strategy that involves a departure from featurism is called cheap and easy .