Insights from being a time use diary participant

When I was invited to participate in a seven day diary study led by another well-known research organisation, the researcher in me was intrigued. I work in the Questionnaire Design and Testing (QDT) Hub at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), and most of my day job is providing advice on how to improve survey instruments. As a respondent rather than a research professional, my involvement in the diary study turned out to be a real eye opener. It highlighted the importance of designing time use diaries for the intended user and making them as user friendly as possible.

Twice, I was asked to complete a week-long diary, recording my activities (focusing on media consumption) every 30 minutes of the day. I had to record who I was with, what I was doing, what media I was consuming, as well as my emotions at the time. I was also asked to fill in a lengthy questionnaire, broken into modules, before completing the diary. Whilst the diary could be done on a mobile device or laptop/desktop (via an app in the first instance and a web page in the second), the questionnaire could not.

What is a time use study?

Put simply, time use research aims to explore how people spend their time. Through using time use diaries, researchers can collect granular information about who people spend their time with, what activities people occupy their time with, what electronic devices they use, and their emotions when carrying out different activities. Time use data offers information on the living patterns of specific population groups. 

Reflections on my experience of completing a time use study

1. Keep in mind the burden on participants: Overall, I found the process overwhelming. As a researcher, I wanted to record things accurately, but I am also a working mum who is constantly multi-tasking, so it was difficult to keep track of everything I was doing. I started to reduce the time I spent on my phone, so I didn’t have to record so much media consumption in the diary. When designing a time use study it is important to keep the task in hand as simple as possible.
2. Consider the visual layout of the diary:  Having the timeslots appear in chronological order and showing which haven’t yet been completed was really helpful. On the other hand, the full seven days were not initially displayed at the top of the diary, it was only when I finished a few days and believed I only had to do five days that the final days were displayed. This was very disheartening as a participant. The visual layout of a diary is important and keeping it simple and intuitive for the participant will reduce the burden of completion as well as manage participants expectations.
3. Consider the incentive payment carefully: The first year I received a £40 voucher, the second year a £45 voucher but this didn’t feel quite enough for the effort I had to go through to complete the diary and a long questionnaire. It’s important to keep in mind the time and effort a time use study will take and select an incentive amount appropriately.
4. User testing is important: The first year the diary was completed using an app which worked quite well but the second year it was a web page, which was harder to navigate back to and would often freeze. User testing of time use diaries is an important step in development. Testing on different devices, the ease of use and functionality should always be a priority.

NatCen's work with time use studies: 

Here at NatCen, the NatCen Opinion Panel has carried out fieldwork for several waves of the ONS Time Use Study. This study which aims to find out how different people across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland spend their time. Earlier this year, NatCen were approached by the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), based at King’s College London, to do a comparative review of two online diary tools used for time use survey research in the UK: the OTUS tool, developed by ONS, and the ELiDDI tool, developed by the Centre for Time Use Research (CTUR) based at University College London.

Survey methodologists in the QDT Hub, Methodology & Innovation Hub and the NatCen Opinion Panel independently reviewed both time use tools. In their review, they explored what improvements could be made to the online and supporting tools to reduce participant burden and improve data quality. In their review, their recommendations were guided by user-centred design principles. The findings of this review are covered in more detail here and are a useful tool for seeing how to navigate the shift to online time use studies and outlines potential improvements to drive efficacy for both respondents and data users.