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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 60-120 min | 45-90 min | 20–45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 2-8 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning |