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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Growth A/B Testing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. | When two variants compete, discussions quickly decide by taste rather than effect. A/B Testing checks behavior under controlled conditions and separates real improvement from chance or expectation effects. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 20–45 min | 1-5 Tage | 1-4 Wochen |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | Small cross-functional group | Nutzertraffic | 1-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Experiment results, Decision log, Learning summary |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation |