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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | 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 | 20–45 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 1-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Decision Tree, Option Map, Assumption List |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | DecisionTreeOptions |