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Criterion
Paper illustration for Causal Factor Analysis.
Operations
Causal Factor Analysis
Paper illustration of two people facing each other, speech bubbles and an open interview notebook.
UX Research
User Interviews
Paper illustration of two user profile cards with a goal, behavior evidence, and an open research question.
UX Research
Personas
Paper illustration of Barrier Analysis with its method-specific working model.
Operations
Barrier Analysis
Purposedifferent
For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events.When teams derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible.When target groups stay too vague and teams talk about the same people differently, personas create a shared, solid picture of usage. Condensed profiles make needs, contexts, and differences tangible enough for decisions.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
HighLowMediumMedium
Timedifferent
2-6 h30–60 min per interview1-3 Tage2-4 h
Participantsdifferent
3-101 participant per interviewInternes Team2-6
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective ActionsInterview Notes, Themes, Insight SummaryPersona Profiles, Needs Summary, Scenario NotesBarrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog
Tagsno overlap
CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline
QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery
ResearchCustomerSynthesis
Root causeSafetyIncident
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