Diary studies and the potential to capture decisions as they happen

As an online grocery store, we often wonder what drives behavior at the moment of decision. What makes you add things spontaneously to the cart? Why do you decide to shop for three dinners instead of four? From previous research, we knew that grocery shopping – being a repetitive activity – often blurs in memory. To capture what happens in those moments, we realized we’d need to be closer to our customers and observe them directly.

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In this talk, we’ll share how we combined diary studies with interviews to capture real-time insights into customer behavior. As participants recorded short video diaries after each shopping trip, they became more aware of the diversity in their shopping trips – from stressful weekend trips with cranky kids to quick stops for milk that turned into full weekly hauls – and all the small, momentary decisions they would otherwise have forgotten. These diary entries allowed us to revisit specific moments in follow-up interviews and better understand not just what happened, but why.

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We want to share what made the diary study work (we all had some less successful diary attempts behind us), and what we wish we had known ahead of this project.

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This session is for you if:

• You work in UX, product, or eCommerce

• Your users interact with your service over and over, but can’t always remember the details

• You want understand what drives (or blocks) users decisions in the moment

• You’re curious about decision-making research or looking for fresh ways to understand your users

• You’ve tried diary studies before, or you’re ready to give them a go