In usability engineering, a focus group is a survey method to collect the views of users on a software or website.
If you're doing non-web design, think of this is an excellent case study in usability engineering.
It is important to distinguish between usability testing and usability engineering.
In contrast, usability engineering (UE) is the research and design process that ensures a product with good usability.
Nielsen and Carroll have both written books on the subject of usability engineering.
Group dynamics meet cognition: combining socio-technical concepts and usability engineering in the design of information systems (http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1282/01/Ad2000.pdf)
Some of the topics being explored by the research groups include geoinformatics, decision systems, spatial information, information security, usability engineering, and personalized adaptive systems.
The quality of the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) is a primary concern of usability engineering.
It was developed by John Brooke at Digital Equipment Corporation in the UK in 1986 as a tool to be used in usability engineering of electronic office systems.
Usability consultant Jakob Nielsen developed this method on the basis of several years of experience in teaching and consulting about usability engineering.
