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Criterion
Paper illustration of two people facing each other, speech bubbles and an open interview notebook.
UX Research
User Interviews
Paper illustration of two considered options leading to a decision record with a marked status and visible consequences.
Architecture
Architecture Decision Record
Empathy Mapping
UX Research
Empathy Mapping
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.An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable.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.
Complexitysame
LowLowLow
Timedifferent
30–60 min per interview15-45 min30–60 min
Participantsdifferent
1 participant per interview1-34-8
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncAsyncWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Interview Notes, Themes, Insight SummaryADR File, Decision Log, RationaleEmpathy Map, Assumptions List, Research Gaps
Tagsno overlap
QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery
ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance
SynthesisQualitativeWorkshop
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Often compared together

Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Affinity Diagramming
UX Research
Affinity Diagramming
EventStorming on a long working surface: colored event cards form a business flow, friction points are marked, and a boundary separates different areas of responsibility.
Domain Modeling
EventStorming