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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  UX Research User Interviews |  UX Research Empathy Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|
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 derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible. | When a lot is assumed about a target group but little is seen jointly, empathy mapping makes knowledge and gaps directly comparable. The picture also shows which assumptions hold up and where evidence is missing. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 30–60 min per interview | 30–60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 1 participant per interview | 4-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Empathy Map, Assumptions List, Research Gaps |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | SynthesisQualitativeWorkshop |
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