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| Criterion |  UX Research First-click Testing |  Engineering Golden Path |  Product Discovery Pretotyping |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When users immediately turn the wrong way on a screen or wireframe, first click testing checks initial orientation at high speed. The first click shows early whether expectation, labeling, and wayfinding fit together. | When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | Pretotyping clarifies whether a customer problem and solution idea create enough real demand. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence, and captures the result as a pretotyping sketch, test setup, and conversion data. | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-2 Tage | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | Stunden bis wenige Tage | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | 10-30 | 2-8 | 1-4 | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Click Heatmap, Success Rate, Design Recommendations | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Pretotyping sketch, Test setup, Conversion data, Go or no-go decision | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note |
Tagsno overlap | UXNavigationFindabilityValidation | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | ValidationDemandMVP | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth |