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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Product Discovery Context Canvas |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|
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 an environment of users, systems, and constraints is hard to grasp, it puts the context compactly on the table. It creates a clear reading of influence, boundary, and dependency. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 3-10 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Context canvas, Open questions, Shared context notes | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | ContextFramingRequirementsCanvas | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
