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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 45-120 min | 30-90 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 2-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |