More 2 Marketing

Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to More to Marketing, a podcast and marketing product, and everything in between. I’m your host, Susan, and today we’re going to be asking the question do you suffer from future fetish? It’s a funny one that I hear a lot and a lot of the time I’m hearing this phase out talking to poor people saying I’m sick of the feature factory. Give me a real product that solves a real problem. Don’t add 2 clutter of an existing one. And This is why I want to do this podcast on feature fetish. But what is a feature factory? A feature factory refers to a product development approach focusing on churning out numerous features or functionalities at a rapid pace. Often prioritising quality quantity. Quantity over quality. It involves continuously adding new elements to a product or service without adequately considering for the user, or if there is even solving a need or if it’s problem solving at all. Now let’s call out. There are three types of problems here. One’s rapid feature deployments. Emphasises on releasing numerous features swiftly. Sometimes resulting in overwhelming product offerings. What does the actual user? Think of these features, are they needed? Nice to. Have or are they just bloat? Who knows, that’s the problem. #2 volume over value. Prioritises quantity of features rather than focusing on solving specific user problems or enhancing core functionalities. Does more and mean does more mean better? Who are we comparing against? Is there any research? Is there any reason or is this just someone’s idea of? I think this would be awesome from the internal group and no one’s even tested to see if it’s even required. And #3. Potential disconnect. This can lead to the feature bloat. Confusing user experiences. And increased maintenance costs without necessarily addressing users needs efficiently or effectively. Who’s paying for this ongoing maintenance? Does anyone actually care? Now there are. Pros that should be considered when you’re going down the line of doing lots of features. Speed to market rapidly introducing features may allow for quick iterations and frequent updates. But our advice is to be planned out on a road map and not just for. The sake of change. Competitive Edge so consistently offering new functionalities could attract users seeking a wide array of features. But make sure you. Ask your customers what they want and need. So being able to. Do it fast, can. Be good. But again, what are your users actually wanting? Cons quality is sacrificed sometimes. There’s so much of A focus on volume it might compromise quality of individual features, and for me one of the biggest things that can happen that I’ve seen is testing is reduced. Not a good idea. User confusion, excessive features can overwhelm the user if they user doing it one way and it. Keeps changing. Leading to confusion and a cluttered user experience. And they may actually leave you because of it. Last one here I have on my little list which I’m sure you have a much longer one. If you’re in product is the resource strain. Constant development may actually strain the resources impacting the overall product quality. There are many, many examples I can give of people doing feature factory, but most of them will lie within the IT space. So in general software apps there are many instances where apps add numerous features without addressing core user needs, leading to complexity that’s not required. There are also many tech gadgets crooks that are frequently introduced with new functionalities. The struggle with usability due to feature overload. A feature factory approach might expedite the release of various functionalities. That many potential sacrifice quality and user centricity impacting the overall user experience and long term success of the product or service. So definitely think if you need to go down the path of feature factory or not. In some instances it might be good to give you that competitive advantage, but always always check with your users that people that are buying it that people are using it to see if they actually want or need it. Thank you for listening to this podcast. From more to marketing, don’t forget to like to listen to more podcasts. More to marketing.