What an online diary study is
An online diary study asks participants to make repeated entries, in text, photos, video or audio, at set times or whenever something happens, over several days or weeks. Because people report close to the moment, you see what they actually did rather than what they remember doing, which makes diaries well suited to routines, product use and anything that unfolds in stages.
Diaries have been part of qual for a long time. Moving them online changed two things: you can see entries as they arrive and respond while the study is still running, and participants can show you the moment itself with a photo or a short video instead of describing it from memory a week later.
When a diary is the right method
Diaries earn their place when the thing you're studying happens repeatedly, or over time, and memory is likely to flatten it. Good fits include:
- Daily routines: meals, commutes, getting the children out of the door
- In-home product trials, where first impressions and day-ten impressions differ
- Experiences with stages, such as moving house, choosing a mortgage or recovering from an operation
- Mood and wellbeing, where the pattern across days matters more than any single answer
- Pre-tasks before interviews or groups, so you walk in already knowing how people live
They're a poor fit for a single reaction to a concept (run a short discussion instead), or for behaviour that might not happen at all in the window you've chosen.
Design decisions that matter most
Length
Most diary studies run for one to four weeks. Set the length from how often the behaviour happens: you want enough occasions per person to see a pattern, and no more. Something that happens daily might need a week; a weekly shop needs three or four. Longer isn't automatically better. Fatigue sets in, entries get shorter, and you end up paying for days that add little. If you need a long view, a shorter intensive diary followed by a check-in a month later often gets you more.
Entry frequency
There are two basic triggers, and many studies use both:
- Time-based: an entry every evening, or every Monday. Easy for participants to remember and easy for you to track.
- Event-based: an entry every time something happens, such as each time they use the product or shop for the category. Closer to the moment, but harder to police.
For event-based diaries, give people a way to say "it didn't happen today". Otherwise you can't tell a quiet day from a participant who's dropped out, and the absence of an event is often data in itself.
Prompts
Keep the core of each entry the same every time, so entries can be compared across days and people. Then rotate one extra question per day or per week to explore something new without changing the backbone.
Ask about the specific occasion, not about behaviour in general: "What did you have for lunch today, and where?" gets you a moment, while "How do you usually do lunch?" gets you a self-image. Keep each entry short enough to do in a few minutes. A diary that feels like an essay every evening loses people by day four.
Media
Photos are the workhorse of online diaries: the fridge, the shelf, the product in use, the mess afterwards. Video adds explanation and feeling, and audio suits people who'd rather talk than type. Say exactly what each photo or video should show. "Show us where you keep it" is better than "upload a photo", and "talk us through what just happened" is better than "record a video". On Qualzy, photos and video come in through the video, audio and image uploads activity, and every video is transcribed as it arrives.
Structured and open questions together
A diary entry can mix a scale or a multiple-choice question with an open question about why. The numbers let you track change across the study; the open answer explains it. Forms and Diary Entry is built for exactly this, with repeated entries on a schedule and participants able to look back at their own previous entries.
A start and an end
Open with an easy introductory task (introduce yourself, show us your kitchen) so people get used to the format before the real work begins. Close with a reflection task that asks them to look back across their own entries. Some of the best material in a diary comes from that last look back.
The participant's side
Participants take part in a web browser on any device, with nothing to install, so they can make an entry wherever the moment happens. Beyond that, the experience is mostly about clarity. Tell people up front how long the study runs, how often you'll need them and roughly how long each entry takes. Be honest: underselling the effort is a reliable way to lose people in the second week.
Decide whether entries are private or visible to other participants. Diaries are usually private, so nobody adjusts their account to match what others have posted. You can still open a separate discussion task later if you want people to react to each other.
Diaries also work in the AI-moderated chat, which many researchers would call an AI-moderated interview. There the diary is its own self-contained chat with multiple entries, and the AI moderator follows up against the goals you set for each question: asking for the detail that's missing, or for a better photo when the first one doesn't show what you asked for. You can step in and moderate yourself whenever you like.
Discovery Research run short projects of one to two weeks as pre-tasks before in-person groups and interviews, with participants uploading photos and videos from their everyday lives. As Hamish Kynoch put it:
We used to ask for input in pre-tasks and get them to email things. Now it is all captured in one place inside Qualzy.
Hamish Kynoch, Head of Qualitative Research, Discovery Research
Keeping people going
Drop-off in a diary rarely happens all at once. It shows up as later entries, shorter answers and the odd missed day. A few things help:
- Automatic nudges. Reminders that go out when an entry is due bring people back without you chasing them by email on day three. Qualzy Discussions sends them automatically.
- Reply early. A moderator comment on the first couple of entries tells participants someone is reading, and it sets the level of detail you're after.
- Watch progress daily. Check who's up to date and contact anyone falling behind while there's still time to catch up.
- Reward completion. Tie the incentive to the whole diary, with clear rules about what counts, so the last entries matter as much as the first.
- Vary the load. If one day needs a video, make the next one quick.
Analysis
Diaries produce a lot of material, and much of it is photos and video. That's where the analysis time used to go. On Qualzy every entry is processed as it arrives: translated if needed, summarised, and broken into key points, each with the participant's own words behind it. Videos are transcribed first, so a 20-minute video becomes a short set of key points, with verbatims you can turn into clips.
While the diary is still running, you can ask Maizy Chat questions of everything that's come in, such as how weekday and weekend routines differ, or what people say on the days they skip breakfast. Answers come with the evidence behind them, so you can check them against what people actually said. Once the diary has closed and every entry is in, you build themes from the key points and pull the quotes and clips that support each one. Clip reels from those clips make the debrief: two minutes of participants in their own kitchens says more to a client than a slide of bullet points.
AI doesn't replace reading. Read a handful of diaries end to end, one person at a time. The way one person's account changes across a fortnight is something a cross-sample summary can't show you, and it's often where the real finding is.
Feeling Mutual use photo diaries alongside video uploads and screen recordings to capture behaviour in the moment rather than from memory. Tom Woodnutt describes what that gives him:
With Qualzy, participants can upload mobile videos, complete a photo diary, or share text about their thoughts, anxieties, and frustrations. Qualzy helps me delve into the intricacies of their lived experiences.
Tom Woodnutt, Founder, Feeling Mutual
Common questions
How long should a diary study be?
Usually one to four weeks. Choose the shortest length that gives you enough occasions of the behaviour per person to see a pattern.
How many entries should I ask for?
As many as the behaviour naturally produces in that window, and no more. One short daily entry tends to work better than several long ones.
Can a diary run in the AI-moderated chat?
Yes. On Qualzy the diary runs as its own chat with multiple entries, and the AI moderator follows up against the goals you set. You can also run it as a forum, the familiar way.
