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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations 5 Whys |  UX Research Personas |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. | 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 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 15-30 min | 1-3 Tage | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 2-6 | Internes Team | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Persona Profiles, Needs Summary, Scenario Notes | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | ResearchCustomerSynthesis | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |