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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Engineering Golden Path |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Architecture Request for Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | When content only makes sense internally and users can't find the structure again, card sorting exposes their mental order. Terms, groups, and naming are then aligned with the target group's expectations. | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | 20-45 min | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 | Based on research question | 3-20 Reviewer |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance |