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| Criterion |  UX Research Diary Study |  Facilitation Six Thinking Hats |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  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 a topic gets stuck too quickly in the same thinking mode, Six Thinking Hats deliberately separates the perspectives. This means facts, risks, creativity, and emotional signals get worked through one after another instead of mixed together. | When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | 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 | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | 45-90 min | 1-4 h | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 5-20 | 4-12 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Diary Entries, Longitudinal Patterns, Experience Timeline | Perspective Notes, Decision Inputs, Action Items | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchTrackingBehavior | FacilitationOptionsDecision | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |