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| Criterion |  UX Research Customer Journey Mapping |  UX Research Affinity Diagramming |  Innovation Starbursting |  UX Research Empathy Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | Helps clarify ideas, open questions, and testable next steps in concrete terms. It opens the thinking space, collects ideas, and leads to testable options. The result is captured as a star-shaped question map, question list, and assumption list. | When a lot is assumed about a target group but little is seen jointly, empathy mapping makes knowledge and gaps directly comparable. The picture also shows which assumptions hold up and where evidence is missing. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2-4 h | 45–90 min | 30-60 min | 30–60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 3-10 | 3-10 | 4-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Journey Map, Pain-point List, Opportunity Backlog | Theme clusters, Insight statements, Opportunity areas | Star-Shaped Question Map, Question List, Assumption List | Empathy Map, Assumptions List, Research Gaps |
Tagsno overlap | JourneyServiceService design | SynthesisQualitativeRoot cause | BrainstormingIdeationWorkshopDiscovery | SynthesisQualitativeWorkshop |