Online diary research that explains everyday choices
Online diary research follows people through their real days as they record what they do, in text, photos, audio or video. MindMarket designs the study, recruits and supports the participants, and reads what changes from one day to the next. You get findings and a clear recommendation, grounded in what people lived.
MindMarket works across 60+ countries · 400+ projects delivered · 50+ global clients, through our research services.
For a diary study, that means a local team built around your question, with moderators who live in the market, so people can describe their days in their own language and your team can compare what those days mean across countries.
What can a diary reveal about your customers?
An online diary shows how your product or service fits into an ordinary day, including the days it does not fit at all.
The yoghurt bought on Sunday with the best intentions. The app opened three times, then forgotten. The purchase pushed back to next month, again.
Each of those moments holds a question. A diary catches it while it is still fresh.
Catch the moments people forget. An entry recorded soon after an experience keeps details that are hard to recall a week later. Bolger, Davis and Rafaeli’s 2003 review of diary methods explains why repeated accounts of everyday life tell you things a single interview cannot.
Memory tidies things up. A diary gets there first: what someone tried, what interrupted them and what they chose instead, in their own words.
See what changes. Someone enjoys a product at the weekend and leaves it untouched from Monday to Friday. Why?
Repeated entries let us come back to that question with them, and look at who was there, how much time they had and what else was on offer.
Your team needs to understand those circumstances before changing anything.
When is an online diary study worth doing?
An online diary study is worth doing when the answer to your question is spread across several days or occasions. Start with what puzzles you: people buy the product and leave it unused, try the service and stop coming back, or describe a habit your data cannot explain.
🍳 Routines and occasions. A food or personal care brand needs to know where its product sits in an ordinary day: how it is prepared, when it is used and when something else wins. A choice made alone on the way to work can mean something different at the weekend with friends.
The diary is built around the distinction your team needs to see.
📲 Adoption and continued use. A service can make a great first impression and still fail to become part of someone’s life. Entries from the first days and the weeks after show where expectations shift, where people get stuck and what gives them a reason to come back.
Diaries earn their place for exactly that reason when you are working out why customers leave and what would keep them.
🛒 The path to a purchase. A diary can follow consideration, comparison, purchase and first use as they happen. It also follows the person who postpones the decision or walks away. What was missing? What made the other option easier? Those unfinished journeys are often where the answer sits.
⏱️ Moments you cannot schedule. Some experiences will not wait for an interview slot: a match day, a delivery that arrives late, the first week with a new device. A diary is there when they happen, and the entry is written while the feeling is still real.
🧰 Products and professional tasks. Repeated use shows where an instruction finally makes sense, where a workaround appears and where a feature stops mattering.
The same approach works for professional routines, such as a recurring task or a handover, once we have checked that people can record their work safely and without breaching confidentiality.
💻 Digital products and UX. A UX diary study follows how people use an app, a website or a device in their own time, well beyond the hour of a usability test: the first set-up, the feature nobody opens in week two, the workaround someone invents. Our UX research team runs multi-market diary studies for exactly that, to see how adoption changes from one market to another and how needs evolve during onboarding.
What does a diary study look like in practice?
A diary study in practice is a short, clear commitment that fits around people’s lives, with an invitation that tells them everything before they say yes.
When we recruited soccer fans across the US for a five-day online diary, the invitation said it all up front. Fans aged 21 and over, in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, New York and New Jersey, and Texas.
About 30 minutes a day, from their phone, around matches they would be watching anyway. $180, plus a $50 bonus for completing all five days. A one-minute screener.
Nobody had to guess what they were signing up for. The invitation even told fans what we hoped to hear about: their ordinary game-day rituals. The lucky jersey, the group chat, the same seat on the same couch.
Our diaries start from the same idea. Make the task easy to understand, honest about the time it takes and worth the effort, and people will show you days you would never see in a meeting room.
How could a diary finding change a business decision?
A diary finding changes a decision when it tells your team what to change or test next. Take an illustrative example, not a client result: a breakfast product people buy with good intentions, then leave in the cupboard.
The purchase says interest. The full cupboard says something else. The answer lives in the mornings in between.
Follow the morning. Participants record what they planned to eat, what happened and what they chose. A photo shows where the product is stored. A short entry explains that leaving twenty minutes early changed what was realistic to prepare.
A moderator then asks where breakfast was eaten, what else was available and whether the same thing happened the next day.
Check the explanation. One rushed morning settles nothing. We compare later entries, including the mornings when the product was used despite the rush, and see whether other participants describe the same difficulty. Is preparation the problem? Or is the product hard to carry?
Choose the next test. If people misunderstand the preparation steps, the recommendation is to test clearer instructions. If the problem is carrying it, a different format deserves a trial. Either way your team sees the reasoning, and what the diary has not yet proved.
What will your team receive?
MindMarket turns diary material into findings and a recommendation your team can act on, in a format built around who needs to read it and the decision in front of them.
📖 The story of each participant. We follow each person’s days before comparing people. An early expectation, a difficult Tuesday and a later choice stay connected, instead of ending up as scattered quotations.
📸 Evidence you can put in front of colleagues. Selected entries, photos and videos, agreed with you and used with consent, show what supports each finding. One memorable entry can make an issue vivid; the report also says whether it is a pattern, a particular circumstance or an exception worth its own explanation.
🎯 A stated point of view. Every MindMarket report closes with what we found, what it means and what we would do in your position, with any important uncertainty written next to the recommendation it affects.
🗣️ A live debrief with your team. We present the findings in a live debrief, so your team can question them and work through what they mean. When several teams need to agree on what happens next, a findings workshop can be added to the scope.
Is a diary the right method for your question?
A diary is the right method when the experience you need to understand unfolds across days and people can record it as it happens. When the answer lies in a single conversation, a shared discussion or something people cannot describe, another method does the job better, and we will tell you so.
Diary or another method?
| Your research need | Method to consider | What the method brings |
|---|---|---|
| Follow experiences across days and occasions | Online diary research | Repeated accounts that explain routines and change over time |
| Explore one person’s reasoning in depth | In-depth interviews | A focused conversation with room for a sensitive or complex decision |
| See how people respond to activities and to each other | Online bulletin boards | Tasks over several days, private or shared, designed around the question |
| Understand an activity by watching it | Ethnographic research | A researcher in the setting, seeing the sequence and the practical detail |
Choose the evidence you need. If the question is how someone reaches a decision, in-depth interviews give it room. If discussion between people matters, online communities explore it over time. If an activity is hard to put into words, multi-market ethnography brings a researcher into the setting.
Methods also combine well. A diary followed by an interview works well: the entries show what happened, and the conversation explains why.
How do we plan your diary study?
A MindMarket diary study is planned backwards from the decision you need to make. You do not need a finished methodology: bring the problem, what you already know and what keeps not adding up.
What do you need to decide?
A clear decision gives every diary task a purpose. You might be deciding how to fix onboarding, which occasion to focus on or why people stop coming back.
Our first questions are what your team believes today and what would make you change your mind. Any feedback or usage data you have then sharpens the diary tasks.
Who needs to take part?
The right participants are people who will meet the product, task or decision during fieldwork. A demographic profile is only the starting point; recent experience, access to the product and the time to contribute matter just as much.
MindMarket recruits in two steps, against criteria your team approves: an online screener that lets us run IP checks, then a phone call in which we explain the study, check how people express themselves and verify their ID.
For a diary we recommend over-recruiting by 20%, because five days is long enough for life to get in the way. Our participant recruitment page explains the whole process.
How long should the study run?
A diary runs long enough to capture the moments your decision depends on, and no longer.
A weekday routine, a delayed purchase and the adoption of a new service move at different speeds, and people can only sustain so much. The timeline shows recruitment, fieldwork and analysis separately, so your team knows exactly when the findings will be ready.
What will participants record and when?
Diary tasks work when they are easy to understand and easy to repeat. A short note explains a simple choice; a photo, voice note or video adds context when it helps. Regular check-ins follow a routine, event prompts catch a defined moment when it happens, and clear guidance covers the days when nothing relevant occurs.
A short pilot before the main fieldwork tests the prompts and the effort involved. It is the cheapest insurance a diary study can buy.
What happens during diary fieldwork?
During fieldwork, MindMarket moderators read entries as they come in, ask follow-up questions and step in when a task is not working. Participants know who to turn to, and your team knows how the study is going.
Make it easy to start. Participants get a clear introduction and a manageable set of tasks. An example entry shows what is useful without telling people what to say, so they stay free to describe a different kind of day.
Ask about the detail that matters. A photo of a kitchen shelf shows where a product lives. The person who took it can tell you whether it is easy to reach, easy to forget or kept there for a reason you would never guess.
Moderators keep their questions open enough for the unexpected answer.
Notice when participation drops. A short or missed entry can mean a confusing prompt, a practical problem or a moment that did not happen. We follow up, and we record the reason: a day that went unrecorded and a day when nothing happened tell you different things.
Keep your team close to the entries. Your team can follow the study as it unfolds, with the access agreed in the proposal. When an entry raises a question you want answered, the moderator can ask it in a follow-up while the participant still remembers the moment.
How do diary studies work across countries?
An international diary study works when one shared question is asked in a way that makes sense in every market. MindMarket runs it with local researchers and moderators who live in each market, coordinated by one project manager, so your team has one point of contact however many countries are involved.
Ask the same question with care. A prompt can translate perfectly and still miss the point. A product, a routine or a service may sit in a completely different part of the day elsewhere.
Local moderators adapt the wording with us while the purpose of each task stays fixed, and every adjustment is recorded so the analysis can compare like with like.
Make room for people’s circumstances. Device access, connection quality, working hours and privacy all shape what someone can record. An employee who cannot film at work needs another way to describe the moment. Instructions say what to share and what never to record, with consent, access and retention agreed for the project.
Keep the meaning in the report. Our analysts work with native speakers on the original entries, not on translated summaries. When a difference between markets matters to your decision, the report explains what sits behind it: the product on the shelf, the people recruited or the occasions recorded.
How do findings become strategic recommendations?
Diary findings become strategic recommendations when each one is traced from what people lived, through what it means, to what your team should change or test. MindMarket’s customer-led strategy work connects that evidence with the choices your business needs to make.
Look for the pattern and its exceptions. We compare entries across days and across people. Several entries from one person deepen our understanding of that person; they do not turn one voice into several.
And the participant who succeeds where others struggle often explains what would make it easier for everyone.
Work through the explanation. A frustrating moment may contribute to someone leaving a service, or it may be one part of a bigger change in their life. We test each explanation against the rest of the evidence and say plainly when more than one still stands.
Recommend an action you can test. If people struggle at one point in onboarding, the recommendation is to test clearer guidance at that point, with what the test needs to prove.
When the decision itself is the hard part, our strategy work turns the evidence into The Decision Case: the options, one recommendation in full sentences and the trade-offs of the routes we are not recommending.
What are the limits of an online diary study?
An online diary study explains experiences in depth, but it does not tell you how common a finding is across a whole population. Participants choose what to share, sometimes miss an entry, and may pay a little more attention to a routine because they are recording it.
MindMarket reads the material with those limits in mind. Photos and repeated entries add context; they still need the participant’s own explanation and careful analysis.
A recommendation from a diary is a reasoned next step. Its effect on sales, adoption or retention needs its own evidence, and saying so clearly is what lets your team use the findings with confidence.
How much does an online diary study cost?
The cost of an online diary study depends on who you need to hear from, how many markets, how long the diary runs and how much moderation and reporting you need. Recruitment difficulty, incentives, translation and follow-up interviews also move the number.
Longer diaries and more markets cost more, and so do rare audiences, because they take longer to recruit. A short pilot and a follow-up interview with a few participants are small additions that can make the whole study far more useful.
Our prices are public. A qualitative research project with MindMarket typically costs between $15,000 for fieldwork-only work and $75,000 and up for a complete multi-market programme, according to our research pricing page.
Diaries are one of the methods inside Deep Listen, our complete study, from $60,000 per programme. If you need to keep listening month after month, Always Listening starts from $15,000 per month.
How the quote works. Our first call is about your need and whether we are the right fit. We then build and cost the proposal and present it at a second meeting. Every quote is itemised and arrives within 48 hours, separately from the time recruitment, fieldwork and analysis take.
The proposal spells out incentives, deliverables, client access and any extras, such as follow-up interviews, translated entry collections, edited video or a findings workshop. Agencies with a defined brief get a scope and quote for exactly the work they need.
Why run a diary study with MindMarket?
Run a diary study with MindMarket because we do the listening ourselves: fieldwork in 60+ countries with researchers who live there, 400+ projects delivered for 50+ global clients, and on every diary study: moderators who follow the entries as they arrive, participants recruited in two steps and verified, one dedicated project manager, and one report with a stated point of view.
MindMarket is an ESOMAR corporate member: every study follows international codes for ethics, consent and data protection. And if something cannot be done well in your timeline, we will tell you, and propose a better way.
Where we run it. Diary studies suit our beauty and cosmetics, pharmaceutical, sports and technology clients best.
Frequently asked questions
What is online diary research and how does it differ from traditional surveys?
Online diary research gathers repeated accounts of people’s experiences through text, photos, audio or video. A survey structures answers so they can be counted across people; a diary explores context and change from one occasion to the next. A diary explains how an experience develops, and it does not measure how common that experience is.
How long should an online diary study last?
An online diary study should last long enough to capture the moments your decision depends on, and no longer. We look at when those moments are likely to happen and what participants can realistically sustain; our diary with US soccer fans, for example, ran for five days. Recruitment and analysis sit on either side of fieldwork. Put your decision date in your research brief and we will propose a workable schedule.
What is the difference between online diaries and online bulletin boards or communities?
Online diaries focus on individual experiences recorded over time; bulletin boards can add shared activities and discussion between participants. The design decides what people see and respond to. An online community can also include private diary tasks, so we choose the format around the kind of contribution your question needs.
How many participants do I need for a diary study?
The number of participants depends on the audiences, markets and experiences you need to explore. We look at which differences matter to your decision and how likely people are to meet the relevant moments during fieldwork, then add 20% to cover the people life will pull away. No number makes a qualitative diary representative of everyone.
What types of data can participants share in online diary research?
Participants can share text, photos, voice notes or video, depending on what the platform supports and what the question needs. We pick the formats that help people explain the moment without making the task a chore. The instructions also cover privacy, including what never to record.
Can diary research work across different countries and languages?
Yes, diary research works across countries and languages when the tasks and the support fit each market. MindMarket runs international diaries with moderators who live in each market and one project manager coordinating the whole study. We agree the countries, languages and reporting at the start, then keep the shared question clear in every market.
How do you help participants stay engaged throughout the study?
Clear tasks, an honest time commitment and quick support keep people involved in a diary study. We explain the activities at the start, read entries as they arrive and follow up when someone goes quiet. Incentives are part of the agreed pricing and scope, and over-recruiting by 20% protects the sample when someone drops out.
When is diary research not the right choice?
Diary research is the wrong choice when the relevant moments are unlikely to happen during fieldwork, or when people cannot record them safely. An interview may be enough to explore a past decision, and observation helps when an activity is hard to describe. Measuring how widespread a finding is calls for a different design altogether.
What tools do you use for online diary research?
We choose the diary platform around the tasks, languages, formats and access your study needs, and around what is easy for participants to use on their own phone. Moderation, privacy, client viewing and exports are agreed before fieldwork, so your team knows exactly what access is included.
Let’s work out what you need to understand
A good diary study starts with a question your team cannot answer yet. Tell us what you are seeing, who you need to understand and what you are trying to decide.
Expect a straight answer on whether a diary fits, how we would run it and what it could change. People rarely remember their Tuesdays. A diary does.
