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| Criterion |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Architecture SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method) |  Operations Root Cause 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. | SAAM helps teams judge an architecture’s suitability for selected tasks and changes. It is particularly useful for examining modifiability and comparing architecture alternatives with clear reasoning. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | Based on research question | Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting | 3-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Domain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternatives | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
