--- title: All You Need to Know About Online Diary Studies description: What is an online diary study? How can it benefit my business? Find out the answer to these questions and more in our comprehensive guide to online diary studies. image: https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/All%20You%20Need%20to%20Know%20About%20Online%20Diary%20Tools.jpg --- close ## Ready to level up your insights? Get ready to streamline, scale and supercharge your research. Fill out this form to request a demo of the InsightHub platform and discover the difference insights empowerment can make. A member of our team will reach out within two working days. close ## Cost effective insights that scale Quality insight doesn't need to cost the earth. Our flexible approach helps you make the most of research budgets and build an agile solution that works for you. Fill out this form to request a call back from our team to explore our pricing options. 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[Read more](https://blog.flexmr.net/participatory-customer-closeness) 6 MIN READ #### Dr Katharine Johnson - [Events (1)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/events) - [Insights Empowerment (38)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/insights-empowerment) - [Practical Application (179)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/practical-application) - [Research Methods (285)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/research-methods) - [Strategic Thinking (239)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/strategic-thinking) - [Survey Templates (7)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/survey-templates) - [Tech & Trends (397)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/tech-trends) Online diary studies are great for capturing experiences with products and services and for taking a more continuous look at consumers in their everyday lives. Doing your diary study online allows you to have a more longitudinal and interactive relationship during the research with your participants. The principle is simple, yet powerful - participants keep a diary of their activities, tasks, experiences and thoughts. In return, researchers get a window into participants' lives, their life-styles, habits, thoughts, experiences and opinions. Thanks to FlexMR you have an all in one approach for your research and for participants to take part in your diary study. It's easy, engaging and you can have the best of both worlds. ### Best Practices for Online Diary Studies - Structured diary tasks. These are easy to fill in by participants and deliver concise feedback. - Give clear instructions as to what you expect of your participants, set helpful deadlines and reminders where and when needed - Use different question types (single/multiple choice, scales, verbatim ...) to draw up a structured task - Include media & stimuli to make it relevant and engaging - Run your tasks as a one-off task or pre-program to repeat in defined sequences - Let participants share media to their heart's content, e.g. images or screenshots, videos or vox-pops - Question and probe as and when needed ### Benefits of Online Diary Studies - Open, free-form journal for participants to tell you all about their thoughts, motivations, frustrations, likes, dislikes and experiences. - Benefit from this creative space for participants - Make it individual or collaborative, with tailored comment functionality - Built in media upload features for great sharing & galleries - Get involved and question and probe for further feedback Being able to combine the structured and free-form, open feedback allows you to collect organic, in-situ feedback from your participants, covering great depth, detail and focus, including any media and examples they share and upload as part of the diary study. Diary studies truly open a window into people's lives. This is helped by the highly customisable FlexMR diary studies that can be set up to your specifications (e.g. collaborative vs. individual), including mobile. So, next time you are looking to review or test a product or service or you'd like to follow customer's lives and understand e.g. their purchase motivations and decisions, life-style and habits, then an online diary study could be just the right method. *To book a free trial of the FlexMR research platform and make use of our wide range of quant & qual tools, click [here](https://resources.flexmr.net/free-demo). Or, click [here](https://www.flexmr.net/services.aspx) to read more about the flexible management levels we can provide.* #### About FlexMR We are The Insights Empowerment Company. We help research, product and marketing teams drive informed decisions with efficient, scalable & impactful insight. #### About Annette Smith As Technology Development Manager, Annette has been vital to shaping InsightHub into the world-class hybrid platform it is today. #### Stay up to date ## You might also like... ![Blog Featured Image Header](https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/Marketing_Files/Blogs/Headers/retaining_human_touch_customer_salience_cx_ai.png) ### [Retaining a Human Touch with Custom...](https://blog.flexmr.net/customer-salience-cx-ai) In recent years, companies have embraced artificial intelligence (AI) at pace, swept up in a technological momentum that promises efficiency and cost savings. However, in their rush to pursue quickly ... 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