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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  UX Research Tree Testing |  UX Research Surveys |  UX Research Card Sorting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 a navigation exists but search paths still fail, tree testing checks findability without visual distraction. The method shows whether labels, levels, and paths really lead to the intended destination. | When a topic needs to be validated broadly and many people can answer the same question, surveys gather structured feedback in a scalable form. Answers become comparable and segmentable instead of remaining merely anecdotal. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 Tage | 3-14 Tage | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Based on research question | 50+ | Based on research question |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Findability Metrics, Path Analysis, Revised IA | Survey Results, Charts, Segment Insights | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | Information architectureNavigationFindability | QuantitativeResearchValidation | Information architectureNavigationStructure |