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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Innovation Design Thinking |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Product Discovery Outcome-Driven Innovation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | For complex user problems with an uncertain cause, the method connects observation, interpretation, and experiment into a learning cycle. It keeps the focus on real needs and avoids premature solution language. This produces robust decisions for product and service. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. | Outcome-Driven Innovation clarifies customer problems, solution opportunities, and evidence. It separates jobs, desired outcomes, importance, satisfaction, and opportunity, and captures results as desired outcome statements, an opportunity landscape, and segments by underserved needs. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | 45-90 min | Mehrere Wochen |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 4-10 | 2-8 | 2-6 researchers plus sample |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Desired outcome statements, Opportunity landscape, Segmentation by underserved needs, Innovation hypotheses |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | InnovationPrototypeResearch | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | OutcomesInnovationResearchQuantitative |