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| Criterion | ![]() UX Research Diary Study | ![]() UX Research Contextual Inquiry | ![]() Systems Thinking CATWOE Analysis | ![]() Systems Thinking Rich Picture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | CATWOE structures a problem from six viewpoints and prevents too narrow a view of the situation. Different experiences of the system become comparably discussable this way. | A Rich Picture brings an unclear situation onto a shared drawing. It captures actors, tensions, information flows, and blind spots before the team jumps to solutions too early. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 3-8 | 2-10 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | CATWOE Canvas, Root Definition, Stakeholder Perspectives, Constraints | Rich Picture, Problem Framing Notes |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | Systems thinkingFramingStakeholders | Systems thinkingSoft systemsFramingVisualization |



