Platform task type
Online diary
Track how behaviour, attitudes, and experiences evolve over time, captured by participants in their own words.
(mobile: online diary task entry screen)
Overview
Online diaries give you a structured, time-stamped record of participant experience as it happens. Rather than asking people to recall behaviour at the end of a study, diary tasks capture responses in the moment, building a longitudinal picture of how habits, attitudes, and emotions shift across days, weeks, or months.
Each diary entry can include text, video, audio, photos, emotion tags, and optional location markers, creating a rich multimedia timeline of participant experience. Three diary formats let you control the cadence and structure of entries to suit your research objectives.
Daily diary
Prompts participants to contribute on a daily basis. Include specific questions or tasks to be completed each day.
Open diary
Set the number of entries required and allow participants to contribute when it suits them.
Custom diary
Set specific dates or times for entries, with automated reminders sent to participants each time one is due.
Features
Everything in the diary tool
All features are included at no additional cost. No restrictions on uploads, entries, or participants.
Structured entry questions
Set questions that participants must answer with each diary entry.
Any response format
Text, video, audio, photos, and screen recordings.
Stimulus attachment
Attach any form of media as stimulus.
Any device
Participants post from mobile, tablet, or laptop.
Auto-transcription
All audio and video content is automatically transcribed.
Auto-translation
Non-English content is automatically translated.
AI moderation
Moderate directly or brief incAI to respond on your behalf.
AI thematic summaries
Automatically generated with supporting participant quotes.
Use cases
Ideal for
Diary research fits whenever understanding how something changes over time is more important than capturing a single moment.
Tracking behaviour and habits over time
Diary research is the right method when you need to understand how behaviour evolves rather than capturing a single moment. Use it to track how a product becomes embedded in a daily routine, how consumption occasions shift across a week, or how attitudes change in response to an event, a season, or a new habit.
Usage and occasion research
Ask participants to record every interaction with a product, brand, or category across a set period. The result is an accurate, contextual picture of when, where, and why usage happens, free from the distortions of recall.
Experience and journey mapping
Follow participants through a defined experience, such as a product trial, a new service onboarding, or a healthcare pathway, and capture how their perceptions shift at each stage. The diary format reveals the emotional arc of an experience in a way that end-of-study reflection cannot.
Category immersion
Immerse your team in the day-to-day reality of participants' lives within a category. A week or more of diary entries builds the kind of contextual depth that shapes genuinely distinctive strategy.
Longitudinal attitude tracking
Use emotion tags and structured questions across multiple entries to track how sentiment towards a brand, product, or issue shifts over time in response to marketing activity, life events, or market changes.
Healthcare and condition management
Ask participants to document their symptoms, daily routines, and interactions with healthcare services over an extended period. The daily format captures the lived reality of managing a condition in a way that retrospective clinical questions cannot.
Ready to see incling in action?
Book a demo and see how online diaries, and the full platform, can work for your next project.