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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Engineering Golden Path |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |
|---|---|---|---|
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 teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 2-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks |
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