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| Criterion |  UX Research Customer Journey Mapping |  UX Research Affinity Diagramming |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Tree Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2-4 h | 45–90 min | 1-4 h | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 3-10 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Journey Map, Pain-point List, Opportunity Backlog | Theme clusters, Insight statements, Opportunity areas | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | JourneyServiceService design | SynthesisQualitativeRoot cause | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality |