Making use of user research
Cooper Interactive: User research can be roughly broken down into two types: usability testing and ethnographic field research. Many people are already familiar with usability testing, and many companies make use of it during development. However, ethnographic field research can yield valuable results for improving products that can't be easily measured by usability testing. (2001-09-16)
The link address is: http://www.cooper.com/newsletters/2001_09/making_use_of_user_research.htm