View methods side by side.
Choose up to four methods. Add them using the search and share the comparison by copying its link.
| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|
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 a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | Root causeQualityOperations |
Often compared together
Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
