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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  Knowledge Modeling Concept Mapping |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Product Discovery Context Canvas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | Concept Mapping arranges terms and relationships in a network that makes subject-matter connections tangible. It fits when a topic needs to be understood structurally rather than linearly. | 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. | When an environment of users, systems, and constraints is hard to grasp, it puts the context compactly on the table. It creates a clear reading of influence, boundary, and dependency. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-2 h | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 1-8 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Concept Map, Relationship Labels, Knowledge Gaps | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Context canvas, Open questions, Shared context notes |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | KnowledgeConceptsMappingSensemaking | UX researchObservationContext | ContextFramingRequirementsCanvas |