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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Barrier 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 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 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. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 15-30 min | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeSafetyIncident |