Developing a product that will fully answer customer needs and result in their satisfaction is practically impossible without understanding that potential customer. Companies spend a lot of time and resources studying the relationship between products and users, commonly placing the focus on the moment of product-user engagement.
However, they rarely put the users themselves at the centre of their research. Because of this, it often happens that fully optimised and perfectly functional products fail to resonate and find an audience within a target customer group.
The key to dealing with this issue is trying to truly understand a potential customer, and getting to know their feelings, habits, needs, motivations, and concerns. To fully connect with the customer, the organisation should learn what they do on a daily basis, what challenges they face, and what occupies their thoughts beyond the scope of the product’s intended use.
Needless to say, this is not an easy process, and getting an accurate perspective on the user persona can be rather challenging. There are several methods to do this, but implementing the day in the life technique is probably the most effective way to get a clear picture of who the users actually are and how the product fits in their daily lives.
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What is Day in the Life Technique?
The day in the life exercise used to conduct a study that will provide a broad and contextual insight into the lives and daily routines of potential product users. The difference between day in the life and other research methods used to study the relation of the product and the customer needs is that it doesn’t solely revolve around the use of the product. Instead, it takes a step back and zooms out to provide a wide-angle perspective on user experience which may not necessarily be directly related to the product.
Implementing the day in the life technique involves tracking and detailing all sorts of daily activities of the user and should produce information from all aspects of their life. This includes describing the participant’s specific daily routines, such as working, commuting, self-care, leisure, and others.
Also, the researcher
should monitor what they do at certain times of the day – when they get up in the morning, after work, before going to bed, etc. Finally, a Day in the Life study should provide information on how products and related processes fit into users’ daily life. For example, how they use their phone, how they order products or services, or how their workplace is set up.
When properly conducted, the research should also take note of the customer’s emotions and how they deal with them. As you can see, these activities are not directly related to product testing and use, but rather aim to deliver an in-depth understanding of who the user is.
The goal is to have a clear view of the day in the life of activity that users may perform by sheer habit and, based on that, understand how the product that is being developed will fit into their daily life. This insight is gained by eliciting interactions at various interaction points between the user and the proposed solution within the context of their regular daily routines.
Besides exploring the experience of a target customer who will be using the product or service you’re creating, the day in the life method is also useful in identifying potential opportunities. The research may reveal specific problems or needs of the user for which they currently have no solution.
Plus, it’s a great way to test certain ideas and see how well they perform in a practical environment. Another important aspect of the technique is that it will help identify not only typical users but also non-typical ones and provide an understanding of why they may not use a certain product or service.
How to Use Day in the Life Technique?
The exact way to implement the day of the life technique will vary from case to case, as it will depend on the type of target customers that is the subject of research and the type of product or service being developed.
Also, the implementation may differ based on the capabilities and resources of the organisation conducting the study. However, in most cases, the day in the life method will involve at least a couple of essential steps that may be adjusted to suit the needs of a particular organisation.
Identify the User / Customer of Study
The first step is identifying whose life is going to be described. Depending on the purpose of the study, this may be just a single person or a class of people, such as potential customers. If the research is conducted to study the daily life of a group of users, it’s important to be as specific as possible when selecting that group.
It’s best that the group is highly homogenous as this will allow for results to apply and be true for most people the company sees as potential users.
Do Previous Research Where Possible
The next stage is doing some previous research about potential users. This involves gathering some general information about who they are and what they do, or the typical challenges they may face.
It’s always a good idea to conduct the interviewing elicitation technique with people in question or have them fill out specifically prepared questionnaires before moving with observing their daily routines.
The day in the life process itself involves describing the typical day of a user in a form of a narrative. To make the story easier to understand and extract information from, it should be divided into chapters, such as early morning activities, going to work, having lunch, after-work activities, etc.
It’s important to go back to the beginning of the day and start there as the product or service need to fit the overall circumstances of the user. Not sleeping well, inconvenient commute, or tense situations at work can all affect their interaction with the product.
The entire day in the life narrative should point to the various things about a potential customer, such as demographics, social life and networking, points of interaction with other products or services, preferences, and psychological and social circumstances influencing their daily lives.
The data gathered during the research than can serve to create more detailed and accurate user personas, helping organisations develop products that will better cater to customer needs.
Advantages and Disadvantage of Day in the Life Technique
Using the day in the Life technique to better understand users brings several advantages compared to other methods of research. However, it also has a few drawbacks. An overview of both is below.
Advantages of Day in the Life Technique
In-Depth Understanding of Users and Their Requirements Using the day in the life technique provides organisations with a detailed overview of potential customers’ typical day in the Life of activity, including their habits, behaviours, needs, and goals. It may help discover things that were out of reach while using other methods of research. For example, some needs may not be articulated by customers but could be very present in their behaviour. There’s often a difference between what a user says and what it does, and studying a day in the life of a user helps gauge this gap.
Human Centred Approach Unlike most other research techniques, this method puts its focus on users themselves rather than on the product and the way they interact with it. This helps the organisation gain knowledge of the wider context and circumstances in which its products or services may be used.
Helping Define Long-Term Strategy Information gathered through the day in the life study are invaluable resources for any organisation. The use cases brought forward by the study and the data of the in-context use of products are very helpful when it comes to creating future roadmaps and presenting them to internal stakeholders.
Providing Context for Future Studies Even if a certain study fails to capture an entire context, its elements can still be useful when conducting a more thorough analysis and designing future research.
Disadvantage of Day in the Life Technique
Time Consuming – The day in the life research method and studying a typical day of a user can take a lot of time, not just during the process of recording activities and creating a narrative, but also during the preparation process and further analysis of the results. Furthermore, if the study is conducted in person, it brings a slew of logistical issues, such as traveling and coordinating with the subject of research.
Diverse Perspectives As different users may have different daily routines, the research may result in diverse findings and day in the life scenarios. This is particularly the case when the researchers fail to properly identify a target group and study a heterogeneous group of users. There’s also an issue that participants in the study may not act naturally during the research process.
Lacking Specific Details on Product User Interaction The day in the life research method, as we mentioned, is not focused on the moments of product usage. So, if the goal is to identify specific situations of users interacting with products, the day in the life may not be the best solution. Most likely, the study will contain information on how the product organically arises in the daily routines, but details of that interaction will likely remain outside the study scope.