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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  UX Research Diary Study |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Strategy Impact 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. | 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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | When a goal needs to be connected to several possible paths, it shows chains of impact instead of feature lists. It connects business goal, behavior change, and measures. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 1-4 Wochen | 20–45 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 5-20 | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Impact Map, Outcome Hypotheses, Delivery Options |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | UX researchTrackingBehavior | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | OutcomesStrategyBehaviorPlanning |