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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Facilitation Mind Mapping |  Decision Making Decision Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | When a topic is still unclear and too many thoughts surface at once, Mind Mapping creates an open surface for ordering them. It makes connections, subtopics, and starting points visible without fixing them too early. | For decisions with follow-on paths and dependencies, a linear comparison is often not enough. A Decision Tree shows how options branch under conditions and which consequences hang on each branch. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 30-90 min | 15-45 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 2-8 | 1-10 | 1-6 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Decision Tree, Option Map, Assumption List |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | DecisionTreeOptions |