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| Criterion |  UX Research Personas |  UX Research User Interviews |  Systems Thinking Future Reality Tree |  UX Research Empathy Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | A Future Reality Tree shows how desired actions are meant to lead to a better system state. The method checks whether a path of change holds together logically before time flows into implementation. | 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 | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Tage | 30–60 min per interview | 2-4 h | 30–60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Internes Team | 1 participant per interview | 3-8 | 4-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Persona Profiles, Needs Summary, Scenario Notes | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Future Reality Tree, Negative Branches, Assumption List, Improved Injections | Empathy Map, Assumptions List, Research Gaps |
Tagsno overlap | ResearchCustomerSynthesis | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Theory of ConstraintsSystems thinkingChange | SynthesisQualitativeWorkshop |