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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Product Discovery Context Canvas |  Operations Fault Tree Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
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 critical top event with several possible triggers, the method logically models failure paths. It makes visible which combinations of conditions can lead to damage. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 3-10 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Context canvas, Open questions, Shared context notes | Fault Tree, Critical Paths, Cause Hypotheses, Control Actions |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | ContextFramingRequirementsCanvas | RiskRoot causeSafety |
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