DIGITAL DIARY
A look over your target group's shoulder.
Digital diaries let you capture behaviour, thoughts and feelings over days or weeks - directly from participants' everyday lives. This helps you understand not just individual statements, but also routines, changes and recurring moments of use.
Participants document experiences in real time or retrospectively through text, photos, video and audio. Researchers can read along live, ask targeted follow-up questions and follow developments on a clear timeline.
Discuss a diary study
Participants document experiences in real time or retrospectively through text, photos, video and audio. Researchers can read along live, ask targeted follow-up questions and follow developments on a clear timeline.
BENEFITS
What makes this method special.
Authentic
Experiences are documented in their natural setting and stay close to what actually happens.
Direct
Mobile participation enables spontaneous contributions in the moment of experience.
Continuous
Recurring entries reveal developments, routines and changes over time.
Multimedia
Photos, videos and voice messages bring usage situations to life.
In-depth
Researchers can ask follow-up questions about individual entries and introduce new topics.
Flexible
Duration, task frequency, participant numbers and method mix can be adapted to the research question.
APPLICATIONS
For research questions in real-life contexts.
Suitable for projects seeking to understand specific situations, developments and differences between target groups.
PLATFORM
Capture moments easily and understand them over time.
You set up recurring questions once. Participants can then document as many experiences as they wish; a timeline makes the sequence easy to explore. Depending on your research question, you can combine open-ended questions, ratings, photo and video tasks, voice messages, collages, sorting tasks or traditional questionnaires.
- Timeline for recurring moments
- Text, photo, audio and video responses
- Scheduling and individual task paths
- Direct follow-up questions and participant communication
- Filter by participants, groups, tasks and profile characteristics
AI IN DIARY STUDIES
Review large numbers of entries faster - while keeping track of the timeline.
Audio and video contributions are transcribed, contributions in other languages can be translated, and entries can be analysed across modalities. Insight Chat helps you explore themes, recurring patterns, sentiments and differences between participants or time points. Original contributions remain accessible as evidence.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Typical questions for this method.
Product usage
When, where and why is a product used - and what barriers arise in everyday life?
Routine and change
How do behaviour, expectations and emotions develop over several days or weeks?
Customer journey
Which moments shape satisfaction, abandonment or recommendations?
Health and care
How are routines, pressures and support services experienced in everyday life?
CONSULTING
Follow experiences where they happen.
We advise you on the duration, task frequency, method mix and analysis of your diary study.
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