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| Criterion |  Innovation Design Thinking |  Growth A/B Testing |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For complex user problems with an uncertain cause, the method connects observation, interpretation, and experiment into a learning cycle. It keeps the focus on real needs and avoids premature solution language. This produces robust decisions for product and service. | 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. | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | High | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | 1-4 Wochen | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 1-6 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Experiment results, Decision log, Learning summary | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note |
Tagsno overlap | InnovationPrototypeResearch | ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth |