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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  UX Research Diary Study |  Growth A/B Testing |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 experiences build up over days or weeks and a single session cannot capture them, Diary Study records the course of everyday life. Recurring triggers, moods, and habits become visible this way, beyond the sharpness of memory. | When two variants compete, discussions quickly decide by taste rather than effect. A/B Testing checks behavior under controlled conditions and separates real improvement from chance or expectation effects. | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 1-4 Wochen | 1-4 Wochen | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 5-20 | 1-6 | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Experiment results, Decision log, Learning summary | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | UX researchTrackingBehavior | ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth |