How to use MoSCoW in UX research and avoid featuritis

UX Design Essentials: Article 11

What is MoSCoW?

MoSCoW is the acronym for a concept called Must Have/Should Have/Could Have/Would Have. This conceptual tool is used to analyze the ranking of your product’s features.

What is featuritis?

Featuritis is the condition of Too Many Product Features. This condition arises when stakeholder and/or design teams add too many buttons, clicks, turns, or knobs to their product. This leaves the consumer utterly confused and overwhelmed, and thereby unable to use the product properly.

To prioritize product features, and avoid featuritis, we use the MoSCoW analytics tool at the beginning of the product’s design phase (or towards the end of the research phase)

What is the concept of a MoSCoW analysis?

MoSCoW is a research/design method that gives you a visual insight into how to prioritize your product’s features

MoSCoW is represented with this four-quadrant chart, each quadrant representing types of features in order of priority, in clock-wise ranking of priority: