Discount usability vs. usability gurus: A middle ground A few years ago, the term DISCOUNT USABILITY ENGINEERING was coined, and the concept became popular. The idea was that the UE field needed to provide faster and cheaper ways to insure usability during product development. This was partly in response to the fact that investment in usability has always been a hard sell in the software development industry, but mostly in response to the fast-paced and cost-conscious development cycles of early Web sites. Traditional UE methods such as task analysis and formal usability testing are fairly time-intensive (and thus also expensive), and did not seem to fit in well with typical early Web development projects. For example, whereas I have often conducted Task Analyses that took several months to complete, and usability tests that took a month or more, I have also worked on Web development projects that from start to launch took a total 8-12 weeks. Clearly you cannot spend several months conducting Task Analyses - just the first step in the UE process - when the whole project must be completed in 2-3 months! Biography October 1, 2001