Elaborade

Elaborade is a neologism used in design, software development, and related discourse to denote the tendency to add excessive detail or complexity to a product or argument, often beyond what is necessary to achieve a stated goal. In practice, elaborade refers to over-elaboration that does not meaningfully improve utility or performance and may impede usability or delivery timelines.

Origin and usage: The term appears to be formed from elaboration plus the -ade suffix, and has circulated mainly in online design communities, blogs, and critique essays since the late 2010s. It is typically used pejoratively to warn against feature creep or over-specified requirements.

Scope and examples: Elaborate interface designs with numerous micro-interactions, exhaustive documentation, or architectural diagrams that require extensive effort for marginal upside are cited as elaborade cases. The concept is discussed alongside lean design principles, minimum viable products, and the trade-off between depth and simplicity.

Criticism and status: As a loosely defined term, elaborade lacks formal criteria and can be subjective. Critics argue that it risks conflating thoroughness with over-engineering, while proponents note that some degree of elaboration can be essential for clarity and reliability in complex domains.

See also: feature creep, overengineering, design debt. References to elaborade are primarily found in informal online discourse; there is no widely recognized formal definition or scholarly consensus as of now.