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| Criterion |  Innovation Design Thinking |  Product Discovery Pretotyping |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | Pretotyping clarifies whether a customer problem and solution idea create enough real demand. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence, and captures the result as a pretotyping sketch, test setup, and conversion data. | 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 assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | Stunden bis wenige Tage | 1-5 Tage | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 1-4 | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Pretotyping sketch, Test setup, Conversion data, Go or no-go decision | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | InnovationPrototypeResearch | ValidationDemandMVP | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |