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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 30-90 min | 45-120 min | 20–45 min |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 2-8 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning |