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| Criterion | ![]() UX Research Contextual Inquiry | ![]() UX Research Diary Study | ![]() Innovation Starbursting | ![]() Innovation Brainstorming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | Helps clarify ideas, open questions, and testable next steps in concrete terms. It opens the thinking space, collects ideas, and leads to testable options. The result is captured as a star-shaped question map, question list, and assumption list. | When a team faces an open question with many obvious directions, the method first creates breadth instead of premature commitment. It separates idea flow from evaluation and makes lines of thought visible, creating a pool for selection and further development. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 1-4 Wochen | 30-60 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 5-20 | 3-10 | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Star-Shaped Question Map, Question List, Assumption List | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | UX researchTrackingBehavior | BrainstormingIdeationWorkshopDiscovery | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence |



