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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  UX Research Diary Study |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Product Discovery Riskiest Assumption Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 experiences build up over days or weeks and a single session cannot capture them, Diary Study records the course of everyday life. Recurring triggers, moods, and habits become visible this way, beyond the sharpness of memory. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | When an idea hinges on one critical unknown, it prioritizes testing that exact piece of uncertainty first. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence. The result is captured as a prioritized list of assumptions, a test plan, and a result report. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 1-4 Wochen | 45-60 min | 1-2 Wochen pro Iteration |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 5-20 | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Prioritized Assumption List, Test Plan, Results Report |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | UX researchTrackingBehavior | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryAssumptions |