Specsmanship
Specsmanship is the often inappropriate use of specifications or measurement results to establish putative superiority of one entity over another, generally when no such superiority exists. It is commonly found in high fidelity audio equipment, automobiles and other apparatus where uneducated users[who?] identify some numerical value upon which to base their pride or derision, whether or not it's relevant to actual use of the device.
Specsmanship has recently[when?] been quite active in the field of digital cameras [1] and electronic display devices.[2][3][4]
But "specsmanship" can also have an almost opposite meaning to the foregoing, when it refers instead to efforts of vendors to measure and disclose freely all of the various objectively measurable product characteristics that actually matter to the potential customer. This was once standard practice among self-respecting vendors[who?] of consumer goods (in 20th century western markets at least), but this information is today often relegated to abbreviated and error-prone lists of "technical specifications", if available at all.
[edit] References
- ^ Don Williams: "Debunking of Specsmanship: Progress on ISO/TC42 Standards for Digital Capture Imaging Performance", IS&T's 2003 PICS Conference, pp. 77–81
- ^ Edward F. Kelley : "What Do the Specifications Mean?", SID04 ADEAC, pp. 15-18
- ^ M. E. Becker: International Display Standards: Status & Agenda, SID'06, pp. 93-96
- ^ M. E. Becker: Display usability, performance specifications and standards, Symposium on Display Usability: Modelling, Specification, Measurement & Assessment, NPL Teddington, 7th March, 2006, co-organised by ORM, SID, UKDN
[edit] External links
- The "Mass" of Pixels or the "Mess" of Pixels? The more pixels, the worse the image. 6MegaPixel.org/
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