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Criterion
Paper illustration of two user profile cards with a goal, behavior evidence, and an open research question.
UX Research
Personas
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Paper illustration of two people facing each other, speech bubbles and an open interview notebook.
UX Research
User Interviews
Paper illustration for Change Analysis.
Operations
Change Analysis
Purposedifferent
When target groups stay too vague and teams talk about the same people differently, personas create a shared, solid picture of usage. Condensed profiles make needs, contexts, and differences tangible enough for decisions.SAAM helps teams judge an architecture’s suitability for selected tasks and changes. It is particularly useful for examining modifiability and comparing architecture alternatives with clear reasoning.When teams derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible.For a deviation after a change, the method isolates the influence of the altered condition. It narrows down which differences are relevant and which are just accompanying noise.
Complexitydifferent
MediumHighLowMedium
Timedifferent
1-3 TagePreparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope30–60 min per interview45-120 min
Participantsdifferent
Internes TeamArchitecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting1 participant per interview2-6
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Persona Profiles, Needs Summary, Scenario NotesDomain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternativesInterview Notes, Themes, Insight SummaryChange Matrix, Cause Hypotheses, Validation Questions, Action List
Tagsno overlap
ResearchCustomerSynthesis
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery
ChangeRoot causeTroubleshootingComparison
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