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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Product Strategy Lean Canvas |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When content only makes sense internally and users can't find the structure again, card sorting exposes their mental order. Terms, groups, and naming are then aligned with the target group's expectations. | When an early product bet still has too many open points, it brings target group, problem, and assumptions into a single view. It condenses the idea so core risks become nameable. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 20-45 min | 45-90 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | Based on research question | 1-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Lean Canvas, Core Assumptions, Experiment Backlog | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | Information architectureNavigationStructure | StartupLeanAssumptionsBusiness model | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |