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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | The method makes visible why two seemingly incompatible demands arise and which assumption must be tested to resolve the conflict. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 60-120 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |