Get feedback from Chinese consumers using your products over time through a diary study in China

A diary study in China can collect ongoing feedback from target participants over a period of time. In diary studies, we ask participants to repeatedly self-report their thoughts & experiences about a specific activity, product, or service. Diary studies are particularly useful because behaviors are most meaningful in the natural environment. Participants can behave differently if there is someone directly observing them, and you can not always be around your users when or where they use your products.

We built our own diary study tool in China to help you gather feedback on your products faster and with richer data

Recap.Chat is built for diary studies. We designed Recap.Chat as a WeChat mini program which provides an easier and direct way to reach the users in China. It allows you to collect information from your users including: 

  • Text & audio messages 
  • Images & videos
  • Location

Recap.chat also equips with a built-in chatbot. It makes the participants more comfortable to share their true opinions and do not have to wait for responses. Recap.chat can effortlessly guide users through tasks, uploading responses to the cloud dashboard.

“They quickly got the point of what we want to achieve, and came up with a solid execution plan in a short turn around time. During the project execution phase, they met all the major timelines and demonstrated their professional expertise on user studies and design.”

BrianZhou

Brain Zhou - Country Engagement Manager (China) at Microsoft

Recap.Chat - diary study tool made by UX Spot

Recap.Chat - diary study tool made by UX Spot

Meet our researchers

Rafael - UX Spot Tech Director

Jun Luo

Rafael is the technical lead at UX Spot, overseeing all IT, tech analysis and performance reviews of the products. As a full-stack developer, he leads our development team creating custom apps for our clients and building our own custom research tools including our remote testing platform and online survey data visualization apps.

We go the extra mile to recruit the right participant for your diary study in China

Diary studies require a lot of involvement over a period of time, so it is important to recruit the right participant and manage their expectations. Not only we ask questions through a screening survey beforehand, but we also schedule a 1 on 1 interview or a phone call with each participant and discuss the details of the study. We will walk through the schedule for the research period and our expectations for their responses.

Pair your diary study in China with mixed methodology UX research

We often use diary studies in China at the beginning of a mixed methodology UX research project to gather initial insights on your target customers, leading to in-person user interviews with the diary study participants to dive deeper on topics. This allows us to design the in-person research around the themes that were extracted from the diary study, having a better understanding of their feedback that happened in a contextual scenario. This is much more reliable than having participants imagine or recall using your product.

We help best in class companies run UX research in China.

Our diary study process

We take the extra steps to capture better data.

Frequently asked questions on diary studies in China

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Ask us your question directly and we will get back to you within 24 hours.

When should I use diary studies for my project in China?

Diary studies in China come in useful whenever you are interested in understanding long-term behaviors or changes in behavior, attitude, or feelings over time. One of the great things about diary studies is that it takes the participants out of the lab setting, so it is easier to have a contextual understanding of user behaviors and experiences.

Diary studies are useful for deeper research such as:

  • To get rich customer feedback on products or services and understand deeper emotions.
  • Studying different cultures to understand what changes in product or service need to be made to enter a new market.
  • Mapping out a comprehensive customer journey, to see how users interact with your organization in all touchpoints.


How long does a diary study project in China take to run?

Diary studies can come in all shapes and sizes. On average, most of our diary studies take around 4-6 weeks depending on what you need to understand, your use case, and the length of period you want the participants to report. First, we need at least 2 weeks to design the screener, recruit suitable participants, and design the questionnaire that participants need to respond in the diary. Next, we run the diary studies for a fair amount of time according to the context of the study. Finally, another 1-2 weeks if we provide raw data or a detailed report of analysis and actionable suggestions.

What kind of results will I get?

As a result, you can expect the raw data of the studies or a well-structured report based on the data. The raw data usually includes a series of text/audio messages, images, and videos. On the other hand, the report organizes and analyzes the raw data from the diaries and puts them into an overall context. The report further gives actionable recommendations for your products or services.

In this UX study, we use AR as a lens to better understand cosmetic customers' needs: we aim to uncover how beauty tech users are engaging with these apps, and synthesize prescriptive solutions.

Continue reading

Don’t miss out on future China UX research insights

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter.

Your data will be safely and securely stored by MailChimp (privacy policy) and only used for the purpose of our newsletter.