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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  Operations Bottleneck Analysis |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Operations Theory of Constraints |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | For a flow that backs up at one point, the method looks for the capacity limit with the greatest leverage. It explains why extra effort elsewhere barely improves throughput. | 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. | For a system that does not get faster despite effort, the method directs attention to the bottleneck. It concentrates improvement on the point that actually limits throughput. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 h | 1-3 Wochen | 2-4 h Analyse, laufend |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 3-8 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Bottleneck Map, Flow Metrics, Improvement Options, Follow-up Measures | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Constraint Map, Improvement Plan, Flow Metrics |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | FlowMeasurementConstraints | UX researchObservationContext | OperationsConstraintsFlowImprovement |