I got a tweet from a customer recently, she had a question on methodology for a particular client.  The project involved some diary work and her end client was really pushing for a high tech solution to having participants capture specific uses of a particular product category when on the go.  The diary phase was just a short 2 days and the participants were to be very active outdoorsy people. As we talked things through, it became clear that Twitter and mobile submission still has some issues. First, believe it or not, not everyone's on Twitter yet, so getting them set up and explaining how to use would take a time and effort. And mobile posting to a centralized research site is still not quite yet prime time (though we are certainly working on it!).  Having folks publish to Facebook or Flickr would also require coordination and set up for both participants and researchers.

The thing that gets lost in the rush to apply technology to diary studies is that there are really two phases to the task:  capturing the moment and reporting to the research team.  It's crucial of course that the moment be captured at the time that it happens. However, the reporting can really happen after the fact (unless the research team wants to engage in conversation right at the moment). Also, mobile devices are wonderful for capture, but lousy for expression, so sometimes it's good to have people wait until they get to the computer to post to their Revelation project.

 There is, in fact,  a wonderful technology for capturing moments. It is truly universal - everyone has it and knows how to use it. It has been soundly tested for years and is pretty much fool proof. It can be arranged into a number of easy to carry form factors, and requires no batteries.  No accounts are required and it comes preconfigured.  It requires no technical support. I am speaking, of course, of paper.

It sometimes gets lost in this hi tech world, but paper is a seriously great technology. And in this case, it was the right tool. A little jot pad was all that was needed with instructions to take a picture of the moment, make some notes and report when back at the computer. It is easier and less intrusive for participants and means less project management for the research team.