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 PDCA Cycle |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | For an improvement that still has to prove itself in everyday work, the method runs it through small learning loops. It connects planning, checking, and standardization into a repeatable learning mode. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 1-3 Wochen | 1 h bis mehrere Wochen | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 1-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | PDCA Log, Experiment Plan, Learning Outcome, Standard Change | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | UX researchObservationContext | Continuous improvementLeanExperiments | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |