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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Decision Making Argument Mapping |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When work processes are known only from accounts and the real context stays hidden, Contextual Inquiry makes behavior at the workplace visible. Observation and follow-up questions together show how people actually work, get interrupted, and improvise. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | When statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 45-60 min | 1-3 h | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | 1-8 | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | SensemakingDecisionRationale | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |