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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Decision Tree |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | For decisions with follow-on paths and dependencies, a linear comparison is often not enough. A Decision Tree shows how options branch under conditions and which consequences hang on each branch. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 30-90 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | 1-6 | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Decision Tree, Option Map, Assumption List | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | DecisionTreeOptions | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |