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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|
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 keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | 1-4 h | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeQualityOperations |
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