Methods
Diary Studies
Diary Studies
Attitudinal
qualitative
semi-moderated
self-reported
longitudinal
Description
A diary study is a qualitative research methodology. Its general goal is to explore people’s interaction with the research subject(software, service, environment, etc.) by interacting with the subject of the study for a longer period while documenting crucial points, events, and observations throughout the process.
There are several approaches to designing a diary study, the main ones being signal/interval-based and event-based. Signal or interval-based diaries mean researchers have outlined specific interactions they want to explore and participants have to report on them as part of their product interaction - it might be at a certain time interval or when a prompt or a reminder is sent(signal).
Event-based means participants are instructed to document their experience whenever an interaction occurs naturally. Diary studies are a complex methodology and are best conducted by at least 2 researchers as a big part of the success of the study is planning, recruiting the right participants, and making sure they are retained for the entire period of the study.
Choice Matrix
Business value
Discoveries
long-term behaviours
Diary studies can provide an amazing and in-depth overview of the participants’ experience, not only in terms of details about their journey but also a variety of data points and all research artifacts resulting from the method: user notes, photos, videos, and screenshots. Diary studies shine the most by letting us peek into our users’ long-term interactions with our product without the need to plan an expensive and challenging field study.
Return of Investment
Incredible depth and variety in results; Great deep dive into users’ habits, attitudes, additional look on other products or services they might be using
Complex planning, execution, and analysis - managing many participants and complex study design; a large body of insights to analyze
A mix of experienced researchers and planning/recruitment support needed
The timeline from start to finish can vary a lot depending on the scope of the study
Pick this method if
You are deeply invested in how your product or service fits into people’s daily lives.
You want to better understand how your users would use the tool if not pressured by time under pre-planned conditions - even the best interviewer cannot arrange a fully free environment for participants to explore and reflect on their decisions and behaviors during an interview or a usability test
You want to get closer to how people think, behave, and change, and what has the power to affect them
You want to improve your product language and message through users’ experience. Sometimes a great selling point can come from a user perspective you didn’t realize exists.
You have users at multiple locations and you can’t afford to visit and perform an ethnography study. Diary studies can be executed entirely remotely.
Pros
Great for creating in-depth journey maps
Humanized research insights and deep empathy opportunities
A variety of insight formats
Long-term observations
Flexibility on scope - targeted or broad
Rich insights that most teams will be able to benefit from
A chance to observe users’ lives outside of their product interaction and learn more about who they are
Cons
Complex design and planning
Ongoing housekeeping - active engagement with participants and daily responsibilities
Participants’ dropout
High-level privacy management is needed
How to execute Diary Studies?
You can split the work into 3 simple stages.
Preparation stage: for all things recruitment, privacy documentation, responsibilities allocation, templates, etc.
Execution stage: briefing participants, fieldwork executing and debrief, incentives
Analysis stage: cataloging and analyzing artifacts, and crafting reports, stories, maps, and any other materials to engage different stakeholders and audiences
In this example, you can look at an example roadmap for execution. The timeframe is 9 weeks where optimistically it can happen for 5 and pessimistically 9 depending on the scope. The pattern represents the buffer which determines the timeframe and the beginning of each stage. Diary studies follow waterfall execution, where each steps is dependant on the data or deliverables from the previous one.
Participants
The goals and how broad your research questions are will define the scope of the study.
For smaller process and journey exploration: 5-10 participants can be more than enough.
For large-scope discoveries with multiple research questions, and a wide range of topics and behaviors to be explored, you might need 20 to 50 participants to reach the desired level of depth and detail.
Small studies
5-10
Participants
Large scope
20-50
Participants
Checklist
You have discussed timelines with your stakeholders and they are on board
You have the capacity to execute - people with skills and time
You have the resources and budget
You have some basic tools to collect the data - docs/sheets or a dedicated platform
You have formulated research questions and needs
You have a subject to be tested - it can be a website, a store visit, a service, a process, a general usage of something like a TV or training equipment
Tools
Office 365
Google Workspace
Dscout
Indeemo
Dovetail
Slides
Microsoft Suite / Google Workspace
Email
Phone (sometimes)
Paper diaries (create some difficulties along the way, especially with analysis)
Dscout
Indeemo
Repository for data collection and analysis
Your presentation and visualization tool of choice (for the report)
Additional devices (in some cases) - phone, camera, voice recorder
