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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | High | High |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 2-4 h | 2-6 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 2-6 | 3-10 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeSafetyIncident | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality |