UXPA 2022 Benefits and Best Practices for Diary Study, a UX Research Methodology for Understanding Users In-Context and Longitudinally
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Common UX research methodologies such as in-depth interviews and quantitative surveys are efficient in providing a snapshot of user behavior, but pulls the participants out of their context into a lab-like setting. Diary studies, on the other hand, asks users to participate in their own environment, over a defined period of time. The resulting data is rich, in-context data that shows the details of user behavior. The longer time period ensures that data gathered is a true representation of user behavior versus idealized instances. However, diary studies require a different approach than IDIs, surveys and usability testing, which are often cross-sectional and experimental in nature. We will provide an overview of the benefits of diary studies as an UX methodology, as well as its use case, requirements, and study design. Furthermore, the team will provide practical advice and knowledge in running a diary study as UX researchers.
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UXPA 2022 Benefits and Best Practices for Diary Study, a UX Research Methodology for Understanding Users In-Context and Longitudinally
- 1. Customer Confidential 1 Benefits and Best Practices for Diary Studies Researchers: Shao-Yu Chen, Tony Moreno A UX Research Method for Understanding Users In-Context and Longitudinally
- 2. Customer Confidential 2 Hello! Key Lime Interactive Shao-Yu Chen, M.S. Associate UX Researcher shaoyu@keylimeinteractive.com Tony Moreno Director of User Experience tony@keylimeinteractive.com
- 3. Customer Confidential 3 Researchers Designers Thought Leaders Key Lime Interactive is a Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX) research, strategy, and design agency focused on helping you take a human- first approach to building better brand experiences, products, and services. Key Lime Interactive Insights for every Industry Sector Strategists Fortune 500 Clients Proprietary Inclusivity IndexTM
- 4. Customer Confidential 4 Diary Studies at Key Lime: What we have done ● News consumption study ● Smart smoke alarm study ● Comparative TV streaming study ● Labelwriter study ● Headphones study Key Lime Interactive
- 5. Customer Confidential 5 Customer Confidential Table of Contents 1. Diary Study: An Overview 2. Data in a Diary Study 3. Best Practices for Diary Studies 5 Customer Confidential
- 6. Customer Confidential 6 Customer Confidential 6 Diary Study, An Overview Section 01
- 7. Customer Confidential 7 Customer Confidential 7 What is a Diary Study? A qualitative research method in which participants manually or digitally record their thoughts, emotions, actions, and journeys around a subject over a period of time.
- 8. Customer Confidential 8 Natural behaviors of participants when engaging in a particular activity What is a Diary Study? Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies How participants’ contexts and environments affect their behavior In-depth feedback and opinions in response to naturally occurring situations Behaviors Environment Feedback Researchers can observe…
- 9. Customer Confidential 9 The Pros and Cons of a Diary Study Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Pros Cons (Near) real-time recording enables more realistic data Longer study period enables participants to provide more in- depth feedback Natural environments provide opportunities to observe the effects of external factors and behaviors Inadequate planning and poor participant selection result in poor data Receiving poor data is much more costly than other, shorter study methods Large quantities of data must be dealt with, regularly and promptly
- 10. Customer Confidential 10 When you want to understand user habits, contexts, journeys, (self- reported) attitudes, and motivations over time. Some examples from past KLI diary studies When to run a Diary Study Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Habits Contexts Journeys Attitudes & Motivations
- 11. Customer Confidential 11 Customer Confidential 11 Data in Diary Studies Section 02
- 12. Customer Confidential 12 The nature of data from Diary Studies Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Qualitative Responses Quantitative Metrics ● Photos and/or video clips ● Responses to open-ended survey questions ● Diary entries ● Locations, time, date ● Response to quantitative survey questions Rich, in-context, and in large volumes
- 13. Customer Confidential 13 1. An (almost) natural setting 2. Participants can proceed at their own pace What Diary Studies can do Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies
- 14. Customer Confidential 14 1. No quick turnaround 2. If self-reporting is involved, beware of the data gathered 3. Difficult to follow-up or make study changes What Diary Studies can’t do Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies
- 15. Customer Confidential 15 Diary Studies give insights into user journeys & behavior over a period of time Participant familiarity with the subject matter Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Who to look for You should have participants who are familiar with the product/service… Even for new products Unless your research goal is observing the novel discovery process
- 16. Customer Confidential 16 Customer Confidential 16 Best practices for Diary Studies Section 03
- 17. Customer Confidential 17 Logistics: Sample size, study duration, research team setup Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies 6.53 HRS 14 HRS 18.7 HRS N=7 2 diary entries a day 14 days of data collection 7 x 2 x 14 x 2 (min) = 392 min = 6.53 hrs N=7 2 diary entries a day 30 days of data collection 7 x 2 x 30 x 2 (min) = 840 min = 14 hrs Data can pile up very quickly in a Diary Study. A quick exercise: 2-min video clips. Let’s say… N=20 2 diary entries a day 14 days of data collection 20 x 2 x 14 x 2 (min) = 1120 min = 18.7 hrs
- 18. Customer Confidential 18 Logistics: Sample size, study duration, research team setup Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies 6.53 HRS 14 HRS 18.7 HRS N=7 2 diary entries a day 14 days of data collection 7 x 2 x 14 x 2 (min) = 392 min = 6.53 hrs N=7 2 diary entries a day 30 days of data collection 7 x 2 x 30 x 2 (min) = 840 min = 14 hrs Data can pile up very quickly in a Diary Study. A quick exercise: 2-min video clips. Let’s say… N=20 2 diary entries a day 14 days of data collection 20 x 2 x 14 x 2 (min) = 1120 min = 18.7 hrs
- 19. Customer Confidential 19 Logistics: What’s a good sample size? Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies 60 3 WEEKS 42 4 DAY S 12 4 DAY S News consumption Labelwriter Headphones Sample size and study length varies across all studies Depends on subject and study goal
- 20. Customer Confidential 20 ● Manual recruitment ● Google Form diary entries ● No cost, but difficult to manage Logistics: Tools to use Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies ● Automated recruitment ● Collects video and generates transcripts ● Creates visualizations for data analysis For larger studies For smaller studies Google Forms and Emails Plenty of tools and services available. Here are a couple that KLI has used:
- 21. Customer Confidential 21 Tasks and Activity Examples: Automated collection of quantitative data ● e.g. Time of day, location, number of occurrences Self-reported responses ● Video segments ● Love letters & breakup letters ● Survey questions during diary submission Study design: Study tasks & activities, follow-up questions Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies
- 22. Customer Confidential 22 Study design: Study tasks & activities, follow-up questions Video recordings ● From our Comparative TV Streaming Study ● Short “interview” segments ● Accompanied by qual and quant survey questions Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Screenshot of video clip in which participant demonstrated the process, accompanied by auto-generated transcript
- 23. Customer Confidential 23 Study design: Study tasks & activities, follow-up questions Love letters & breakup letters ● At the end of data collection ● Used to discover trends in participant sentiments ● Very easy source for memorable quotes Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies
- 24. Customer Confidential 24 Definitions If coding qualitative data, definitions for the tags used should be clearly understood and communicated throughout the research team Data preparation: How to deal with the large amounts of data Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Updates If there are changes (e.g. new tags created or obsolete tags removed), they should be communicated immediately Delegate Tasks If sample size is large, delegate groups of participants to each researcher Communicate the method of treatment Prepare the team for the intended data analysis methods before data collection
- 25. Customer Confidential 25 Prepare the data as it starts rolling in (checked, coded, compiled, tabulated) To ensure the team is not overwhelmed during data analysis Data preparation: How to deal with the large amounts of data Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies The data should be tread AT LEAST every time the data comes in. ○ Ideally daily Small chunks are easier to deal with incrementally Cadence of treating the data Processing raw data during data collection
- 26. Customer Confidential 26 At KLI, we decide the tags before coding ● These are based on the research goals ○ what are you interested in? ○ What do you anticipate to occur during the study? Data preparation: Quick notes on coding qualitative data Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Tags from the TV streaming study, including both behavior and emotions GENRE LIVE TV IN-APP MENU DISAPPOINTMENT CONTINUE WATCHING SUBSCRIPTION MY STUFF/ FAVORITES
- 27. Customer Confidential 27 Coding Quantitative Data ● Create or remove tags on the fly, as emerging behaviors and trends are observed ● Basic, descriptive tags (time of date, location, activity) ● Intangible tags (emotions, contexts, behaviors) Data preparation: Quick notes on coding quantitative data Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Tags from the label writer study, including both behavior and emotions SOMETHING NEW LIVE TV DISAPPOINTMENT CONTINUE WATCHING SUBSCRIPTION MY STUFF/ FAVORITES FEATURED FREE
- 28. Customer Confidential 28 Journey Mapping Easy overview of the experiences of the participants during the diary study Particularly useful for studies that examine behavior in a multi-step activity (a journey) Data analysis: How to use the data from Diary Studies Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Journey map built from the labelwriter study
- 29. Customer Confidential 29 Journey Mapping Easy overview of the experiences of the participants during the diary study Particularly useful for studies that examine behavior in a multi-step activity (a journey) Data analysis: How to use the data from Diary Studies Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Key Lime built a tool just for that!
- 30. Customer Confidential 30 Participant “reviews” Any qualitative questions can be rich sources of quotes, to illustrate the overall trend and conclusions drawn from the diary study Data analysis: How to use the data from Diary Studies Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Product reviews from the Smart smoke alarm study. Summary on the left, one excerpt on the right
- 31. Customer Confidential 31 Video clips & Participant quotes Video clips allows researchers to be at places they could not otherwise Data analysis: How to use the data from Diary Studies Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies
- 32. Customer Confidential 32 In summary… Diary Study Overview | Data in a Diary Study | Best Practices for Diary Studies Diary Studies provide a valuable method to glimpse into the lives of your participants. ● To be at places you couldn’t be ● To observe participants react in the context of their own environments Be aware of the potentially massive amounts of data that a diary study can generate ● Pare down on sample size if possible ● Process the data for analysis as diary entries roll in ● Adapt your analysis to fit participants emergent behavior Familiarize yourself with tools that can help you such as: ● Dscout ● JourneyTrackTM ● Google Forms Final takeaways How to approach Tools
- 33. Customer Confidential 33 Thank You! Questions? Reach us at shaoyu@keylimeinteractive.com tony@keylimeinteractive.com
Editor's Notes
- Update with Shao and Tony’s pictures + info
- To our clients, we are the market leader in: Informing them about their Customers’ needs, wants, desires and behavior Optimizing the design decisions they make Mapping existing experiences & defining opportunities to make them better Differentiating those experiences from their competitors Developing Future Experiences and strategy to best use emerging tech Xxxxx Understanding Customers (Customers’ needs, wants, desires and behavior) Prioritize Improvements / Optimization & Validation of Design Differentiate Strategy for Emerging Tech Key Lime Interactive (KLI) is a Customer Experience and User Experience research, strategy and design services agency focused on helping companies take a human-first approach to building better brand experiences, products and services. Key Lime’s UX experts provide actionable insights for every industry sector to help our growing list of Fortune 500 clients understand and effectively engage their customers. Ultimately, KLI empowers teams to use consumer insights and user experience data at all phases of product development, from strategy to implementation. Our experts share the true perspective of a client’s target users to help them design exceptional consumer-driven solutions. Research studies are delivered with KLI’s proprietary Inclusivity IndexTM report that makes it easy to identify how studies meet broad inclusivity goals to build a more inclusive brand, product, or service. This slide should politely remind the audience that they need our support. That despite their best efforts, they can’t do it alone. Quote citation: https://www.forrester.com/report/Rich+Internet+Application+Errors+To+Avoid/-/E-RES46114
- (read. Don’t linger)
- Let’s break it down a bit. The first and most prominent feature of diary studies is having users participate in a study in their natural environment. This research method lets us see the natural behavior of participants, with relatively little interference from a “sterile” study environment like a lab. Get to you observe contexts & environments Diary studies happen over a period of time, anything from a few days to a few weeks or even longer. This gives an opportunity for participants to provide in-depth opinion and feedback about their experiences
- Diary studies can provide a lot of benefits. (observing natural environments, in-depth feedback from participants overtime). This will let you collect realistic data in (nearly) real-time. However, these benefits and features of diary studies will also lead to potential issues that the researchers need to be careful of… Since data is collected over time, they can quickly pile up and must be dealt with regularly and promptly. Because of this large amount of data, planning is extremely important for diary studies. If the study is poorly planned, the data generated from the study will be of poor value. As a result, receiving poor data is much more costly for a diary study than other study methods.
- So, when do you want to run a diary study? What’s your goal? At Key Lime, we run diary studies when we are looking for user habits, context, journeys, and their attitudes and motivations. Habits will be observing what participants would do over time. For example, we ran a news consumption study before, in which we wanted to observe how users watch news in their day-to-day lives. We asked them to simply make diary entries when they watch the news, with a few simple survey questions, and ask them to talk about what they did that time, when they watched the news. What did they watch, what channel or platform did they watch it on, any blockers/troubles, etc. In addition to habit, you can also use diary studies to understand the context surrounding the participants. What was happening in their day? Where were they? Who were they with? In the news consumption study, we saw how participants responded to major news events that occur in their lives, such as politics, international events, local news, or even just how they felt about the weather news that day. Key Lime has also done a streaming study in which we ask participants to set up and watch TV streaming devices in their homes. In that study, we asked the participants about their home environment when they watch TV, which would be pretty hard for us to place researchers in people’s homes and just stare at them and their families when they watch TV Diary study is also well-suited when you want to observe the journey a user might take with a particular product or service. What was the experience for the user starting to use a product or service, to getting familiar with it? How did they feel throughout the different stages of their journey? In the TV streaming study, one of our goals was to observe how participants would set up the tv streaming devices… Moreso in our labelwriter study, we specifically asked the participants to take the different steps of setting up and getting familiar with their labelwriter product as separate diary entries throughout the data collection period. The goal of that study was to understand how the participants' experience varied and changed throughout the initial customer experience. What was the unboxing like? How did they feel when setting up the product? When getting familiar with the functions of the product? When finally using the product? Because diary study designs allows researchers ample time for data collection, we can observe the participants at different stages of product usage and understand how their experiences change going from step to step Lastly, researchers can use diary studies to understand the internal attitude and motivations of the participants. This happens with all of the diary studies that we run at Key Lime, through responses to study tasks, survey questions, or just simple observation. One powerful advantage of the diary study is that we can then correlate participant’s responses for their internal motivations and attitudes, with all the other factors you can observe during the diary study (the behaviors, the context) and be able to record very realistic data. Habits: News Consumption Study Contexts: News Consumption Study, Comparative TV streaming study Journeys: Labelwriter study Attitudes and motivations: All diary studies
- So I have talked a lot about the kind of information diary studies can provide, let’s talk a bit about the data you can get from diary studies
- The first thing to know about the data you can get in diary studies is that… there’s going to be a lot of it. Depending on the tool you use to run it, you can collect a variety of formats. Here we have some examples of the data we often get from diary studies at Key Lime. Remember that diary studies is a qualitative study, and that we want to leverage diary studies to be at places that UX researchers might not easily be… Short, simple answer. Or long responses Or better yet, instead of asking them to write anything, video Diary studies can also provide a number of quantitative data as well. What time Where (if location) How frequently Scale questions
- So, with the data you can get, and with the nature of diary studies, you can provide a natural, well almost natural setting for your participants, and give them a chance to proceed at their own pace as well. They aren’t pressured by the 60-min time limit of a study session. Shao’s note: recall is harder than recognition. Allowing users to be in their natural context can facilitate recognition (Almost) natural setting Moderated in-depth interviews take participants out of their context Diary Studies collect data (almost) naturally Participants can proceed at their own pace Instead of forcing users to recall or form a response on the spot A Diary Study gives time to digest, process, and consider their actions
- A few cautions Diary studies simply take a lot of time, that you have to account for. You have to take more care with study design to make sure the data you get is valid and useful. You have longer, multi-day data collection for every single participant. And you need the time to chew through data analysis. Since diary study is qualitative, and often self-reported, researchers have to be aware of the quality of the diary entries they are receiving. Are the participants making diary entries the moment when they are doing the study activity? (and do you need that?) Do they provide you with the information you are aiming for (motivations, emotions, contexts.)? Or are they just listing the steps they took (and is that okay for your research goal)? Lastly, the format of diary studies may make it hard to follow up on what you observe during data collection. Can’t stop the participants when they go off on a tangent. “Oh that’s interesting but…” Can’t follow up when you see something interesting (and you will). “Oh could you tell me more” Even if you were to design a set of follow0up IDIs after the diary entry period, you simply don't have that in-the-moment element with diary studies. Also, it can be quite difficult to make last-minute changes for diary entries. Once the study gets off the ground, it may be difficult and inadvisable to change diary questions, data formats, or prototypes. If data collection questions are changed mid-collection, then you might have trouble comparing your data sets later down the road. If your prototype suddenly needs design updates, it may not be possible to change what’s already in the participants’ hands. No quick turnaround Need to allow participants time to go through their journeys Even shorter studies at KLI are ~5 days of only data collection If self-reporting is involved, beware of the data gathered Qualitative data: Participants may not be entirely honest (consciously or unconsciously) Quantitative data: ideally collected automatically, not manual entry Difficult to follow-up or make study changes If something interesting occurs, it may be difficult to follow-up quickly Even when the study design allows for follow-up IDIs Once going, it may be difficult to adjust study activities/questions Pre-fielding planning is extremely important to collect robust and useful data
- And a note on participant familiarity with the study topic. In our experience, Key Lime is often using diary studies to get insights into user journeys and behavior over time. So we are often looking for participants who are familiar, or at least knowledgeable, with the subject or product that we are testing Likely to have an established journey to observe in the first place this have true even for testing unreleased products (In Key Lime’s case, this was our labelwriter study, in which we tested a physical prototype for a labelwriter, and we still looked for participants who actually created labels before). However, there can be potential exception… Testing something completely new & unfamiliar with the participants Diary Studies give insights into user journeys & behavior over a period of time Good to observe the role and usage of something they already know If a product is entirely unfamiliar to a participant, they would likely not have a journey to observe At Key Lime, we look for participants who have experience in that area Even for testing prototypes for yet-to-be-released products Unless observing the discovery process is the aim of your research goal
- And from participants, let’s talk about sample sizes. I mentioned earlier that diary studies get a lot of data, and let me illustrate with a few hypothetical examples: Let’s say you are collecting 2 minute video clips from your participants in their diary entries. And let me put that into perspective for you…
- 6 and half hours? That’s about the run time of the Star Wars original trilogy 14 hours, you could have watched season ONE AND TWO of Strange Things 18.7 hours, and you could have played through Marvel’s Spider-Man on the PS5 And that’s just watching these videos. Not including coding the video, compiling your spreadsheets, or even looking at other responses
- Let me show you a number of studies that Key Lime has done before. Our diary studies all varied in sample size and length depending on the research goal and subject matter. The news consumption study was a multi-national study that spanned US, Canada, and Germany, and we wanted to observe how participants changed their behavior with current events, hence the large sample size (20 per country) and the long study length. With the labelwriter study, it was two countries, and two different user segments, hence the 42 participants. But, this study was focused on the discovery, setup, and first-use journey of a new product. So the data collection was only 4 days. The headphone study was looking at how participant behaviors change in different usage environments and contexts. So we were able to gain valuable insights already at a fairly small sample size and short study length. And I want to add a note on data governance for diary study. In our experience, researchers have to be prescient on how all the data from diary studies will be used by stakeholders, clients, whoever you are reporting to. While it’s great that you can build a giant archive of video clips, participant quotes, survey responses, are these really going to be looked at by your decision makers or clients? And how long does this archive have to live, and how would it be interpreted by future stakeholders who may not even know the context of your study? At that point, the massive amount of data you have collected from just one study, may not be a strength after all. News consumption study - To understand user journey in news-watching, in U.S. Canada, and Germany N=60, Length=3 weeks Labelwriter study - To test functional prototype with experienced users N=42, Length=4 days Headphones study - To understand user behavior with product in different environments N=12, Length=4 days Also, data governance, from Eugene. Data governance is a problem in and of itself. Having all the data, might not even be able to use all this info. Even if created, archived, you are betting on someone be able to understand and use the giant archive From Eugene: “If you are gonna do a diary study, a month is a really long time. 50 people is an excessive number of people in a diary study. You do not need to watch 50 people for a diary study… An enormous amount of information… In excess of 900 videos!” This is meant for commercial/consultant context. Make this clear. May be appropriate for academic context
- A note on tools to run diary study. There are plenty of services and platforms available nowadays, but for simpler studies, we have done manual management through Google Forms and email reminders. So everything from recruitment to data collection and follow up would have to be done by the researchers, but it is free. On the other hand, we have used Dscout for our larger studies. While services like that come with a cost, you will have a suite of features and support from those platforms, including recruitment, transcript generation, relatively easy implementation of your studies, and support for data analysis and visualization. These platforms can take some weight off of your shoulders when you do have a more complex or involved study. Manual management with Google Forms and Emails Manual recruitment Scheduled emails to participants Diary entries submitted via Google Forms No cost, but difficult to manage Most suitable for simpler diary studies Dscout Supports the study from recruiting to post-diary study IDI Collects video clips and generates transcripts Supports coding, filtering and visualization for data analysis Can be scaled up for large diary studies
- So, for diary studies, there’s a variety of activities you can ask the participants to do and data to record. I would like to show a few examples from what we have done at Key Lime. What are the kinds of tasks/activities? Here are some of our past examples: Self-reported responses Video segments as short “interviews” Naturalistic observations Love letters & breakup letters Survey questions during diary submission Automated collection of quantitative data Depends on what your data collection tool is capable of e.g. Time of day, location, number of occurrences
- This is a nice method to be with the participants virtually, we give them a prompt for one of their diary entries, and they could film themselves, or themselves doing something. In this case, the participant showed us the TV streaming setup at home. Oftentimes, the video entries are accompanied by survey questions for them to answer as well. These clips are valuable, as they serve almost like a short interview segment that encourages the participant to spontaneously respond and verbalize their thoughts. On a side note: the tool that we happen to use to for this study was Dscout, which provided automated transcripts, which does help digesting and highlighting the video clips a bit easier. Video recordings From our Comparative TV Streaming Study Short “interview” segments Participants to explain their process, contexts, and mindsets when performing a study activity Like a mini-interview Accompanied by qual and quant survey questions
- Another activity that we have asked the participants to do before was a love or breakup letter. Towards the end of the data collection, we asked the participants in our Smart Smoke Alarm study to choose and write either a love or breakup letter for the product they tested. This activity lets the participants reflect on their experience with the product as a whole. When we look at the love letters and breakup letters, we were able to understand the overall trends in participant sentiments, both positively and negatively. Also, longer form written responses like these are a very ready source for memorable quotes, Love letters & breakup letters At the end of data collection, participants chose to write a “love letter” or “breakup letter” for the product they are testing Used to discover trends in participant sentiments Side benefit: Very easy source for memorable quotes
- With all the data that you are going to get from a diary study, you’ll need a team of researchers to divide and conquer the work. Here let me provide you a few best practices through the lens of coding as a research team. Before the study even starts collecting anything: The first thing is to communicate with the team of the intended method: definition of your codes/tags Once something changes, communicate updates ASAP. Delegate to your colleagues. Split up the user segments, so each researcher can tackle a group.
- And once data collection starts rolling, it’s time to be vigilant and process the data continuously, and avoid them piling up. …and for the cadence, we really encourage treating the data at least daily. Watch the clips, go through the quotes, look at the survey responses, and so on.
- On a very relevant tangent: coding qualitative data This subject has enough material for its own talk at UXPA, but here’s a few quick notes. Research goals will decide what specific codes you use…. Here are some example codes we used for our TV streaming study, which included both behaviors and emotions
- However, the codes are fluid. We create and remove codes on the fly, based on the emerging behaviors we observe during data collection Types of codes (basic & intangible) Create or remove tags on the fly, as emerging behaviors and trends are observed What interesting behaviors did the participants end up doing? Include both basic, descriptive tags (time of date, location, activity) and intangible tags (emotions, contexts)
- Now what do you do with all the data you have gathered? This is where the researcher’s creativity will shine. There’s too many possibilities, but I do want to show you a few great examples we have done before Diary study often looks at journeys. So journey map is a logical endpoint… Gives an easy overview. Good for multi-steps
- And Key Lime happens to have built a tool for just that. Building a journey map. Put in persona, put in the steps, and represent their experience and emotions throughout the journey
- Product review we asked participants to do. Including a 5-star scale review. Which made for a nice quant-like representation to reinforce our findings, and quotes to bring out points to life
- Last but not least, video clips. We have talked plenty about it… Video clips & Participant quotes Sometimes, a video is worth a thousand words Video clips allows researchers to be at places they could not otherwise