From the course: UX Insights Weekly

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What is a diary study?

What is a diary study?

- Diary studies are a way to capture people's behavior over time so that you can understand their habits, how frequently they perform certain tasks, and how they feel about performing those tasks. Most diary studies ask participants to answer questions each day or each time they perform a particular task. Doing this over a period of time lets researchers see how behaviors change over time. This is useful to see how long it takes someone to get proficient with a new product or to track them through a decision process like buying a new car. You might just want to get a glimpse into a specific aspect of their regular lives to see what issues they face that you could solve with a new application or service. We used to collect this information by getting participants to keep a physical paper diary or journal. I've also given participants a video camera and sent them a new video tape each week along with a reply paid envelope…

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