Feature Cascade (HI Guide)

Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines / Part 1 - Fundamentals: Chapter 3 - Human Interface Design and the Development Process / Design Decisions

Feature Cascade

When deciding whether or not to add features to your product, think about whether the benefits to users of additional capabilities outweigh the additional development efforts, growth in size, and reduction in running speed that the features would cost. If you are developing a simple application, it's very tempting to include additional features that users claim they want. It takes a lot of restraint to stick to the original intent of the application. Watch out for feature cascade, because it can often reduce the overall effectiveness of and add unwanted complexity to your application.