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Selected:Affinity DiagrammingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Quality Attribute WorkshopSoftware Architecture Canvas
| Criterion | ![]() UX Research Affinity Diagramming | ![]() Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) | ![]() Architecture Quality Attribute Workshop | ![]() Architecture Software Architecture Canvas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When research notes, feedback, or observations sit unconnected side by side, affinity diagramming sorts the raw material into solid themes. Many individual points turn into patterns that make decisions and opportunities clearer. | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. | A Quality Attribute Workshop translates quality requirements into concrete scenarios and architecture impulses. The method brings product, engineering, and operations to the same view of desired properties. | The Software Architecture Canvas reduces a system to the most important architecture decisions, constraints, and interfaces. It is useful when teams need a resilient overall picture quickly. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 45–90 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 2-4 h | 1-2 h |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 5-15 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Theme clusters, Insight statements, Opportunity areas | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Quality Scenarios, Priority List, Architecture Concerns | Architecture Canvas, Goals, Constraints, Quality Attributes |
Tagsno overlap | SynthesisQualitativeRoot cause | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | RequirementsArchitectureWorkshop | CanvasArchitectureAlignmentWorkshop |



