Diary Study Board
Collect insights by asking people to take notes and observe their behaviors during a specific period of time. (Exploratory research tool)
- Steps
- 6
- Last edited
- Feb 28, 2021
- Created by
- Nova
About this process
Collect insights by asking customers, users or employees to monitor and observe their behaviors during a specific period of time. This is a research method used in research design, design thinking, market research, etc in which a specific group of people needs to take notes, photos and report specific data to help a team of researchers and designers understand certain behaviors. Benefits: Allow users, customers or employees easily and visually provide personal details and information about their daily life to researcher and design teams. Gather information about key moments of their daily life Spotlight unusual and repetitive behaviors Collect information about their feelings and thoughts Collect feedback from testing This tool can be useful prior to a user interview. Reference (2015) Baxter, Kathy & Courage, Chatherine & Caine, Kelly. Diary Studies.
The process in detail
6 steps- 1
Prepare the session
- 2
Prepare the board
- 3
Ask users or employees to track and observe their behaviours over a period of time
- 4
Diary
- 5
Personal observation and thoughts
- 6
Evaluate and analyze the board
Read the full text
1. Prepare the session
Add the instruction and the goals of this session to the "Goal/ Instruction section." Provide an example or a link to a board sample on the 👉 "Goal/ Instruction section." You can also use our example. Mark this step as complete👇 once you are done preparing this session.
2. Prepare the board
Structure the board and add questions and guidelines. For example, in this diary study session, we were evaluating how women feel about creams and their self-perception to improve our communication and our ads. Here is our board:
3. Ask users or employees to track and observe their behaviours over a period of time
Invite your users or employees as "guest" and explain over a meeting or a phone call how to use this "diary" and what the goal is.
4. Diary
Follow the instructions and create your own visual diary. You can add additional information or videos adding a link to a document or folder. Contact your session leader for more information.
5. Personal observation and thoughts
Share your thought and observations with us.
6. Evaluate and analyze the board
Analyze actions and daily behaviors that they are doing over and over again. Evaluate their expressions and other things they don’t pay attention to. Compare what they say with what they do. Compare your findings with your hypothesis.
- This is a sticky note!
- This is a sticky note!
- This is a sticky note!
- Morning
- Start typing here!
- This is a sticky note!
- This is a sticky note!
- This is a sticky note!
- 12 to 2PM
- 9 to 11PM