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Strengths And Weaknesses Of Diary Studies

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Diary Study Essay

Reflecting on your experiences as a participant, you are required to write a 1,500 words essay where you discuss the strengths and weakness of diary studies as a methodology for the evaluation of mobile applications.

The focus should be on critiquing the use of diary studies. Are they useful? If so, in which context? What are possible alternatives to diary studies?

Introduction

Diary studies have been a traditional research method in the fields of psychology and anthropology for many years. Lately, the fields of human-computer interaction adopted the diary studies as qualitative method for collecting user data during the product development process. From user discovery, customer experiences, user validation, or design iterations; diary studies help collect insights in the context of users’ daily lives.

Diary studies are useful to uncover user habits and motivations about something. They are valuable due to the nature of gathering users experience in real-time. The use of diary studies for mobile applications presents some distinctive characteristics that need to be confronted for its optimum results. In this essay, I explain the diary study insights cycle, highlight the benefits and drawbacks of diary studies, and its justification as a research methodology.
Using Diaries Study as a Valuable Method

Diary studies are a longitudinal research technique used for observing participants over a longer period of time than a typical survey or interview.
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