What is a Diary Study

Overview

A Diary Study is an Advanced block type in Decode used to collect responses from participants over multiple days, instead of in a single session. Instead of answering all your questions in one sitting, participants complete a series of short activities released at scheduled points across the study period.

Why use it

A single survey only captures a participant's response at the moment they take it. A Diary Study collects responses at multiple points over time, so you can track how something changes, such as a habit, an opinion, or an experience, across days or weeks, instead of relying on a single snapshot or a participant's memory of something that already happened.

Structure

A Diary Study is made up of one or more Activities. Each activity represents a single check-in point in the study, such as Day 1, Day 3, or a Post-Purchase Reflection, and can contain multiple tasks for the participant to complete, such as a text response, an image or video upload, or a rating question.

Scheduling

Each activity is released to participants on a schedule you control. Decode supports four schedule types:

• One Time — the activity is released once, on a specific day
• Daily — the activity repeats every day across a date range
• Weekly — the activity repeats on specific days of the week you choose
• Every N Days — the activity repeats at a custom interval you set, such as every 2 days

You can also set a due time for each activity, how many entries a participant must submit, and whether late submissions are accepted within a grace period after the due time.

Results

As responses come in, Decode shows you overall study metrics such as completion rate and drop-offs, an AI-generated summary of engagement patterns, and a performance breakdown for each individual activity, so you can see where in the study participants stayed engaged and where they dropped off.

When to use it

Use a Diary Study when you need responses collected across multiple days rather than in one sitting, for example, tracking product usage over a week, following a decision-making process as it happens, or checking in on a participant's experience at several points during a longer process.