Sale must end

If you ask someone outside the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field about usability, many will mention the "classic" discount methods popularized by Jakob Nielsen and others. Discount methods have the appeal of seeming easy to do, and, more importantly for business, being inexpensive. This is especially attractive to smaller startup companies with low budgets. But are discount methods really too risky to justify the "low" cost? This month's business column authors think so, based on their research and experience. Indeed, they believe that these discount methods may actually backfire and end up discrediting the field. Following a lively discussion on the CHI-WEB listserv, we asked them to explain what they see the risks to be, and what they believe we, as a profession, can and should do about it. --- David Siegel and Susan Dray

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