Kevin Fox

With some exception this is true. Sad, but taking a feature away from even the small subset of users who use it is like taking candy from a baby (which doesn't mean it's easy, but rather that it involves a lot of kicking, screaming, and crying. If they're older they'll also tell you they hate you and never want to see you again). - Kevin Fox

taking cupcakes from a toddler is even more difficult - peter

Agree with Kevin. Not sure about Peter. This is why remote controls have 57 buttons. - Chris White

Wwwwwwwwwhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! - Robert Scoble

Yup! Yahoo experimented with a new interface and got the "New Coke" effect. People wanted the old interface, and Yahoo switched back. Some VCs recommend that only building your user base to 2,000-5,000 users while are experimenting with interfaces. It's too painful to switch with larger user bases. - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell, this isn't exactly the same thing. I would describe the feature problem as "feature creep." The other problem is just resistance to change. Inside a company, there is actually lots of pressure to change the user experience, but little lobbying for removing features. This is a big problem for a product designer that wants to provide an elegantly simple interface. - Chris White

A large part of the cause of feature creep is resistance to change. You can argue that adding new features is also change, but adding a new feature has a relatively small marginal cost for existing users. Most can ignore the new feature, or learn how to use it when they are ready. Removing a feature has a very large impact on every single user that uses that feature, however, as they are forced to adapt. - Laurence Gonsalves

As an aside, all this talk of resisting change reminded me of the story about eBay's background color: http://thoughts.overstimulate.... - Laurence Gonsalves

My point is that feature creep is started before users ever get involved. There are lots of forces on the inside of a company to produce new features and to keep them in a product. It's very difficult as a product designer to defend one of the most important features of any product: simplicity of use. - Chris White

Feature-itis! run!! - Susan Beebe

For example, product marketing often uses other products for comparison. If they find competitors have features you don't , they often want them added regardless of the effect on product simplicity. You need a strong leader to prevent this effect over time. - Chris White

Improve don't remove :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Quick! Robert is already crying some of the missing feature in the iPhone version! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Engineering is often about tradeoffs. Good product design is often about feature tradeoffs. Swiss army knives don't make great meat cleavers. - Chris White

+1 for Chris's army knives & meat cleavers - Mitchell Tsai

Yeah, I agree that feature creep isn't only due to users, and can start before users even see the product. I guess these are really two sides of the same coin. On one side you've got the people building the product adding features that maybe shouldn't exist, and on the other you've got the users and their resistance to change making it difficult to remove features once the builders realize their earlier mistakes. - Laurence Gonsalves