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| Criterion |  UX Research Customer Journey Mapping |  UX Research Affinity Diagramming |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a user journey falls apart across many touchpoints, customer journey mapping makes the experience visible as a coherent arc. Phases, emotions, and breaks become legible enough to prioritize critical moments deliberately. | When research notes, feedback, or observations sit unconnected side by side, affinity diagramming sorts the raw material into solid themes. Many individual points turn into patterns that make decisions and opportunities clearer. | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | High | High |
Timedifferent | 2-4 h | 45–90 min | 2-6 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 3-10 | 3-10 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Journey Map, Pain-point List, Opportunity Backlog | Theme clusters, Insight statements, Opportunity areas | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas |
Tagsno overlap | JourneyServiceService design | SynthesisQualitativeRoot cause | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality |