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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Growth A/B Testing |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | When two variants compete, discussions quickly decide by taste rather than effect. A/B Testing checks behavior under controlled conditions and separates real improvement from chance or expectation effects. | 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 demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 1-4 Wochen | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 1-6 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Experiment results, Decision log, Learning summary | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth |