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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | 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. | When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 30-90 min | 15-30 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 2-8 | 2-6 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |