Vincent Ferrari
12-19-2008, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://techdirt.com/articles/20081216/0248583136.shtml' target='_blank'>http://techdirt.com/articles/200812...248583136.shtml</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"I imagine this won't come as a huge surprise to many of you, but it appears that we're all influenced by the presence of tech specs on a product -- even if those specs are somewhat meaningless. A variety of separate studies showed that people would usually purchase the product with "more" specs, even if they were meaningless. One of the tests even had people create their own tech specs based on their usage, and they were still more influenced by the specs than the actual usage."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1229693721.usr18053.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>Interesting concept. It's most evident in Antivirus software and Office Suites. Look at the back of the box. They all have tons of checkboxes where they rattle off tons of features that really don't mean much to anyone but make the program look more fully featured. In fact, just yesterday, I purchased a copy of Artisteer for Windows to redesign the theme on my personal blog. I bought the home version instead of the more feature-rich Standard version even though it had more checkboxes. Why? Because most of them were irrelevant to me. That being said, if I was the average consumer, I could see how more checkboxes would've swayed me. So now I open the floor to you guys; do you agree with the linked story? Do you have a friend or family member who buys based on checkboxes? Don't even limit it to computers; consider cars, etc.</p>