This document outlines several studies that used paper diaries and video diaries to collect data from research participants. It describes a study comparing paper and video food diaries, a video diary study on allergy medication use, and a study comparing paper and video diaries on intimacy products. The document finds that video diaries provided richer insights and a more engaging experience for participants compared to paper diaries. It also notes some drawbacks of video diaries like cost and technology access issues. Overall, the document concludes that video diaries are a powerful research method that can provide data not otherwise accessible.

1. Dear Diary: Improving Data Quality and
Creating an Engaging Experience through Video
Miriam Gerver, VS Research LLC
Vivienne Segal, VS Research LLC
American Association for Public Opinion Research
2011 Conference
Phoenix, AZ

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Paper Diary on Food Consumption
• Video Diary on Allergy Medication Use
• Paper & Video Diary Study on Intimacy Enhancing Product
• Drawbacks and Limitations
• Conclusions
• References
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3. Introduction
“People are increasingly accustomed to having their everyday lives recorded,
often with the understanding that that footage may be viewed by numerous
other people. To use video recordings in research is to harness this wider
cultural aspect which in turn can reveal the complexities of everyday
experiences and realities.”
Forsyth, Carroll, and Reitano, 2009, Introduction: Illuminating
everyday realities: The significance of video methods for social
science and health research, p. 214
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4. Introduction
• Video diaries more likely:
 Comfort with webcam technology
 Comfort with sharing their home life on video
• Video diaries could replace paper diaries as a standard research
methodology
• Video diaries – little research
 Medical/health research
 Ethnography/sociology research
 Education
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5. Paper Diary on Food Consumption
• Paper diaries first used most commonly for food diaries
• Food study on desserts
 Asked respondents to complete a daily diary
– What desserts they ate
– When they ate it
– With whom they ate it
– How they felt after eating
– Additional notes they deemed relevant
 Completed as homework assignments prior to a focus group
• Deliberately recruited creative and articulate people
 Limited data
– Minimal information recorded
– Did not add much prior to focus groups
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6. Video Diary on Allergy Medication Use
• Objective: to learn how the consumer is thinking and feeling about issues
with their allergies
 Provide the foundation for innovation work of the pharmaceutical
company that produced allergy medication
• Target population: women between the ages of 25 and 45, who suffered
heavily from seasonal allergies, and used a variety of medications to
alleviate allergy symptoms
• Entries 2x/day (morning and evening) and when they were experiencing
an allergy symptom, for a period of 2 weeks
• 60 individuals participated in the diaries
 Received monetary incentive
 Kept the webcams they were sent to use during the course of the study
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7. Video Diary on Allergy Medication Use (cont.’d)
• Huge success!
• Advantages, both anticipated and unanticipated:
 Researcher benefits
- Provide feedback to respondents “in the field”
- Researchers could ask respondents to elaborate
- Selecting participants for follow-up interviewing
- Date and time stamps
 Richness of the insight and raw emotion that can be captured from the
respondent entries
 Let the researchers see the context of the entries
- The ability to capture linguistic, or paralinguistic characteristics
- Non-verbal data, such as body language and emotions
- Physical surroundings, such as the home, outside, in a car, or
wherever the recording is taking place
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8. Video Diary on Allergy Medication Use (cont.’d)
• Main insights (findings):
 Allergy sufferers do not stop their lives for allergies
 The norm, for heavy allergy sufferers, is having allergies.
 Behaviors for addressing allergies are not consistent with types and
severity of symptoms.
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9. Paper & Video Diary Study on
Intimacy Enhancing Product
• Compare paper and video diaries more directly
• Objective:
 Explore couples’ relationships with lubricant intimacy products
 Gain insight into the consumer experience with these products
 Articulate the benefits around the product experiences in order to build
communication opportunities.
• Diaries were used to understand:
 The experience the couples had with the products
 How the products fit into their lives
 For what occasion they used them
 What the expectations were prior to the experience
 The reality of the experience
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10. Paper & Video Diary Study on
Intimacy Enhancing Product (cont.’d)
• Sample of 20 heterosexual couples, 17 of whom were represented in our
study.
 7 of the couples completed paper diaries
 10 of the couples completed video diaries
• The study took place in New Jersey.
• The couples were between the ages of 25 and 45, and had some past
experience with the products.
• Because the topic is so sensitive, we accepted only those who had a
strong comfort level discussing sex.
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11. Paper & Video Diary Study on
Intimacy Enhancing Product (cont.’d)
• Over a 10-day period prior to in-person interviews, all couples were
instructed to keep diaries to capture their experiences using 2 products.
• They were asked to submit 5 recordings:
1. Introduction
2. Pre-trial expectations for the first product
3. Reactions post usage to first product
4. Pre-trial expectations for second product
5. Reactions post usage for second product
 They were also instructed to include motivations for using the
product.
 Similar instructions were provided to respondents who completed the
assignments using video and paper diaries.
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12. Paper & Video Diary Study on
Intimacy Enhancing Product (cont.’d)
• Video diaries were much more vivid than the paper ones
• Seeing verbal and non-verbal cues helped enrich the data and provided
the emotional layer (the feelings associated with the facts) that were not
accessible in the written form
• Decision by the couple in how to express their experience became
meaningful in understanding their relationship:
 Did respondents record together or separately?
 If they recorded together, what dynamics were observable between
them?
 Did they sit close to each other?
 Did they look at each other at all during the recording, or just at the
camera?
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13. Paper & Video Diary Study on
Intimacy Enhancing Product (cont.’d)
• Main insights (findings) gained from video diaries:
 Expectations: We see both unity and disconnect between the couples
 Reactions: Expectations were set up higher than product reality
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14. Drawbacks and Limitations
• Expensive
• Limited access to technology for some respondents
• Some might find it odd to talk to a camera
• Like any diary method, not possible to probe respondents immediately, as
one would do in an interview or focus group
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15. Conclusions
• Video diaries afford us opportunities to obtain data that previously was not
available, or was much more difficult to obtain.
• This method can be particularly effective with younger people, who have
grown up with rapidly changing technology, and tend to be less
intimidated by it.
• All in all, video diaries are a powerful way to conduct research as well as
present it to clients; those who view the diaries feel connected to the
respondents in a much stronger way than those viewing written
transcripts.
• There is an emotional engagement that is not present in other remote
methodologies, that, together with increased quanlity and accuracy of
data, brings the research to life.
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16. References
Buchwald, D., Schantz-Laursen, B., Delmar, C. (2009).Video diary data collection in research with children: An
alternative method. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(1), 12-20.
Chalfen, R. & Rich, M. (2004). Applying visual research: Patients teaching physicians through visual illness
narratives. Visual Anthropology Review, 20(1), 17-30.
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Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Ekman, P., Irwin, W., & Rosenberg, E. (1994). EMFACS: Coders instructions (EMFACS-8). San Francisco:
University of California San Francisco Press.
Forsyth, R., Carroll, K., & Reitano, P. (2009). Introduction: Illuminating everyday realities: The significance of video
methods for social science and health research. International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches,
2009(3), 214-217.
Holliday, R. (2004). Filming “the closet”: The role of video diaries in researching sexualities. The Americna Behavioral
Scientist, 47(12), 1597-1616.
Holliday, R. (2008). We’ve been framed: visualising methodology. The Sociological Review, 48 (4), 503-521.
Laterza, V., Carmichael, P. and Procter, R. (2007). Using video diaries to explore the nature of education research.
Paper presented as part of the symposium 'Developing and Researching a Virtual Research Environment for
Education' at British Educational Research Association (BERA) Conference, September 2007, London.
Leigh, B. C., Gillmore, M. R., & Morrison, D. M. (1998). Comparison of diary and retrospective measures for
recording alcohol consumption and sexual activity. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 51, 119 –127.
Minnis, A. M., & Padian, N. S. (2001). Reliability of adolescents’ self-reported sexual behaviour: A comparison of two
diary methodologies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 28(5), 394–403.
Monrouxe, L. V. (2009). Solicited audio diaries in longitudinal narrative research: A view from inside. Qualitative
Research, 9, 81-103.
Morse, J. M., Beres, M. A., Spiers, J.A, Mayan, M., & Olson, K. (2003). Identifying signals of suffering by linking
verbal and facial cues. Qualitative Health Research, 13, 1063-1077.
Murthy, D, 2008. Digital ethnography: An examination of the use of new media technologies for social research.
Sociology, 42(5), 837-855.
Noyes, A. (2004). Video diaries: a method for exploring learning dispositions. Cambridge Journal of Education, 34(2),
193-209.
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17. Contact:
Miriam Gerver, VS Research LLC
Miriam@vsresearch.com
201-498-9333
Paper available upon request
THANK YOU!
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