Diaries are good at studying usage patterns that cross multiple technologies, locations, and environments. UX researchers use diary study methodology to understand “Why it happened”.
Lazar & Hochheiser (2017) introduce the basic concepts of a diary study. The diary study is effective to fill the gap between observations in naturalistic settings and fixed settings[1].
Carter & Mankoff (2005)[2] describe the diary as one of the various types of media. Also, it introduces diverse types of diaries such as photo diary, festival diary study, and transit decisions diary study. Authors also mention other unobtrusive techniques for field studies. Cultural probes and ESM are examples.
Sohn et al. (2008)[3] introduce one of the research studies that effectively applied the diary study methodology. The study well adopted the diary study to better understand the mobile information needs and how they are addressed. The result of the study showed that depending on time, resources, and situational contexts, people use diverse ways to obtain needed information. The article suggests several ways to recover the weakness of diary studies such as using voice recording and the snippet technique such as text message schemes.
All readings compare the diary study methodology with other study methodologies such as surveys and ESM. The strengths and weaknesses of diary study methodology are all commonly mentioned by three readings. The strengths are that it is an epitome for understanding users’ immediate reactions at a more accurate time. The weaknesses are that it takes a long time and it could be inaccurate. Another common theme that is all mentioned by readings were two types of diary studies: 1) Feedback study, 2) Elicitation study.
These readings reminded me of the digital storytelling method [4]. It is an emerging narrative methodology to comprehend participants’ experiences. This methodology is also known as participatory videography and filmmaking. It is very similar to diary studies in that both are participant-driven.
When using these methodologies, we could understand the viewpoints by observing the way of sharing their own story. It is different from the diary study methodology in that the digital storytelling method targets more marginalized populations such as youth, people with disabilities, and isolated communities. Also, this method is useful for researchers to understand the interactions between participants.
[1]Lazar, J., Feng, J. H., & Hochheiser, H. (2017). Research methods in human-computer interaction. Morgan Kaufmann.
[2] Carter, S., & Mankoff, J. (2005, April). When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary studies. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 899–908).
[3] Sohn, T., Li, K. A., Griswold, W. G., & Hollan, J. D. (2008, April). A diary study of mobile information needs. In Proceedings of the sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 433–442).
[4] Loebach, J., Tilleczek, K., Chaisson, B., & Sharp, B. (2019). Keyboard warriors? Visualizing technology and well-being with, for and by indigenous youth through digital stories. Visual Studies, 34(3), 281–297.
