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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Decision Making Decision Matrix |  Decision Making Argument 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 options collide with several criteria, comparison quickly becomes subjective. A Decision Matrix makes the trade-off visible and brings weighting, criteria, and options into a shared logic. | When statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | 1-8 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected Option | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs | SensemakingDecisionRationale |