Insightology

Let's say you are a cell phone manufacturer and you have to make a decision about a new phone. Your clever engineers have developed several new features that could make your phone much more distinctive in the market. What do you do? Do you put as many features as you can into one phone, or do you introduce several phones, each with a different set of features? Researchers at the University of Maryland asked this question and conducted a series of experiments to answer it.  Surprisingly, their conclusion is that having a larger number of specialized products would be better in the long run.    

Two concepts that were explored in this study were product "capability" and "usability". Capability refers to how well a product is expected to perform and usability refers to how easy it is to use. In the first experiment, people were asked to rate the capability, usability and expected satisfaction with two devices (an audio player and a video player) with differing numbers of features. The results show that product capability (as compared to usability) has a bigger impact on how satisfied people expect to be. In other words, it seems we are more dazzled by additional features before we use a product.      

In the second experiment, people were given the freedom to select features that they wanted for their player from a list without any concern for how much it would cost. On average a high number of features were chosen, suggesting a desire for product capability. However, the evaluations of the products (whose features they themselves had selected!) indicate that when more features are selected products are seen as more capable but less usable.

Neither of these experiments involved people actually using the product. The third experiment rectified that problem. One group of people was asked to evaluate products with differing numbers of features. Another group was given a model and asked to perform a series of tasks, then evaluate the product and then asked to choose one. Strong differences emerge. Before use, the products with more features (capability) get rated higher and selected. After use, products with fewer features make people more satisfied. Interestingly this is true regardless of whether people have more or less expertise with the product.

What does all this mean? Having more features helps sell the product initially. But making the device more usable leads to higher longer term satisfaction and may improve the chances that a person would repurchase the device. Think about this as a consumer. How many products (cell phones, cars, TVs, computers, software) have you bought where you were enamored with a lot of features at the time of purchase? How many of those features do you regularly (or even ever) use? If you are a typical consumer, not many. People tend to restrict use of products to a set of features they need which is often far less than what the product offers. So why pay more for features you may never use and (as shown by these researchers) be less satisfied in the process?                  

This research was conducted by Debora Viana Thompson at Georgetown University and Rebecca Hamilton and Roland Rust at the University of Maryland and appears in the November 2005 issue of the Journal of Marketing Research. Click here for an interview with Roland Rust.