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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Decision Making Argument 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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | 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 statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 20–45 min | 15-45 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | Small cross-functional group | 1-3 | 1-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | SensemakingDecisionRationale |