Diary Studies: Deeper Insights Into Your Customers’ Desires

Every company these days wants to know more about the people who use its products. It makes sense because if you know your users, you can design products that will appeal to them, and thus gain their loyalty. To that end, companies have tried many methods for finding out what’s relevant to their users, including focus groups, demographic research, and surveys, among others.

Diary Studies are another qualitative method of gaining deep insights into customer and user behaviour.

Diary Studies are another qualitative method of gaining deep insights into customer and user behaviour. Diary studies, used notably by William, “Bill” Gaver, Professor of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, is a method whereby people keep a diary about their experiences with a product over a period of time, recording all their successes, failures, and ideas about interacting with the product. The results are then analysed so that the design team can make modifications based on this information, to tailor the product to the user’s actual needs.

Diary studies were first used in the social sciences, as something that fell under the umbrella of ethnographic studies. Ethnography is the study and systematic recording of human cultures, and an ethnographer uses a mix of data collection techniques in his or her work. Diary studies were developed to get a more accurate picture of a culture than what subjects would report to an interviewer. Because they were self-generated, they had the advantage of being truer to what the subject was really feeling and thinking.

Diary studies have the same advantage in the field of product design because they uncover what the subjects are actually experiencing as they use the product, not what they reveal on a survey form or in an interview setting. It’s a demonstrated fact that when we as researchers conduct a user test or an interview, our very presence can leave an element of acceptable bias on the results, leading to a positive evaluation of a system despite poor user performance. This is well known in social science and is called a social desirability bias. When people know they are being watched, they behave in ways that will conform to what they think is socially acceptable (and it takes an experienced test moderator or interviewer to be able to spot and counteract this).

Diary studies can reveal completely different facets of information because the subjects aren’t trying to please an interviewer. For example, a diary study might reveal that the mood of the subject, or perhaps the strong criticism of the product by a friend, impacted the person’s opinion of your product. A flaw that the design team regarded as minor may be revealed in the diary to be a significant stumbling block for your users. A feature that your company has built a marketing campaign around may be of minimal interest to users, as revealed in their diaries.

Advantages

There are a number of advantages to diary studies:

1. They allow longitudinal studies. This is the main advantage, and it’s a valuable one. Diary studies by their nature allow companies to study user behaviour over an extended period of time. A company can structure a study over a span of days, weeks, or months to get valuable data about how their product is used over time.
2. No social desirability bias. People are more honest in their diaries than they are in interviews.
3. Recording of actual user experience. Because of the extended time frame, a diary study will turn up problems and issues that are not visible in a shorter study. Companies get a clear picture of the issues users face on a daily basis with their products. They can then understand the number of separate actions and activities undertaken, and find out the detail in these sequences.
4. They reveal information the user may forget in an interview. People often gloss over or forget problems in an interview or on a survey form. In a diary they’ll record what actually happened and how they felt about it, which gives a truer picture of their experience.

Things to consider

Diary studies do have considerations for those projects where optimum results are required:

1. They need quality participants. Perhaps more so than in other types of studies as the quality of the results depends on the participants. Participants need to be willing to record their experiences in detail, and with clarity. They also need to make the commitment to record daily and with consistency.
2. Some participant training is necessary as a diary study demands more work from participants. Training is needed to make sure participants understand what is required of them.
3. Data analysis can of course, like other research methods, take time. Diary studies can produce a lot of data. Often it’s not a simple matter of adding up numerical responses in a survey.
4. Because of the quality of data they produce, diary studies can be more expensive to run than other studies. However, the rewards from the quality of data are rich.

Diary Studies have the potential to give a truer picture of actual user experiences than other methods if they are structured and managed correctly.

There are a variety of digital methods that have been developed in recent years that keep the costs within reach of any project that will benefit from rich data. There are mobile, digital diary apps that allow users to record audio, video, photos, and text messages on the fly. They are significantly cheaper and easier to use than the traditional paper and pen diaries of yore.

Diary studies are a great addition to the arsenal of a company’s design and marketing efforts. They have the potential to give a truer picture of actual user experiences than other methods if they are structured and managed correctly. Because they follow user experience in a longitudinal fashion, they reveal the highs and lows of day-to-day use in a valuable way. Companies can tap into this information to make changes in product design and features that will reflect what actual users want and need. They can reveal a gold mine of information about what resonates with users, allowing companies to take the guesswork out of their product development and marketing efforts.

It’s clear that diary studies are making a transition from the world of social science to that of business, and the reason is that in today’s highly competitive market they give companies a window into how real people use their products. And that’s invaluable information.