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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations Barrier Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
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 a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 30-60 min | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | Root causeQualityOperations | Root causeSafetyIncident |
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
