(kree’ping fee’chr-izm) Creeping featurism is a slang term used to describe a tendency for systems to become more complex over time as more features are added than were in the original design or plan. This term is widely used in software and hardware development, but is also used in non-technical industries. In software or hardware development, these added features often come at the expense of major design goals such as stability, simplicity or bug reduction. Creeping featurism is also called creeping featuritis.
See also related term feature creep.
