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Selected:Card SortingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Fishbone DiagramATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Architecture ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | ATAM helps teams weigh architecture decisions when quality goals compete. The team considers business goals, stakeholder expectations, and technical decisions together. The evaluation shows which risks need further investigation. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 30-60 min | Several meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 | Evaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Prioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigations |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | Root causeQualityOperations | ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders |