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| Criterion |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  UX Research Tree Testing |  UX Research Card Sorting |  Product Discovery Fake Door Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. | When a navigation exists but search paths still fail, tree testing checks findability without visual distraction. The method shows whether labels, levels, and paths really lead to the intended destination. | When content only makes sense internally and users can't find the structure again, card sorting exposes their mental order. Terms, groups, and naming are then aligned with the target group's expectations. | When demand is still unclear, it measures interest in a feature before it is built. It separates real behavior from polite agreement and deliberately keeps build effort small. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-5 Tage | 1-2 Tage | 20-45 min | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | Nutzertraffic | Based on research question | Based on research question | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Async | Async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Findability Metrics, Path Analysis, Revised IA | Content groups, Label set, IA hypotheses | Click Data, Interest Signal, Learning Decision |
Tagsno overlap | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | Information architectureNavigationFindability | Information architectureNavigationStructure | ValidationExperimentsDemandDiscovery |