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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Facilitation Alignment Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|
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. | When several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 1-2 h |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation |
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
