Understand People

Photo Journal

When to use it

Use this tool to facilitate a photo study during your research to capture and document real behaviors from the user’s perspective.

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Completed Photo Journal Template Example

What’s the purpose

Photo journals are a great way to see into the lives of users. By capturing images of real moments in their lives, it gives you a window into their reality which can reveal extremely interesting insights that you may otherwise not have the opportunity to observe.

How to do it

1. Decide how you’ll capture and store your photos as you go. Any simple, accessible option works — your phone’s camera roll, a note-taking app, or a shared folder (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive) synced to your phone. Pick whatever makes it easiest for you to add a photo and a quick note in the moment.
2. Set yourself a 24-hour window and keep a photo journal of your own experience. As you go about your day, take a photo any time you notice something worth capturing — your living space, things that make life easier or harder, habits and hacks, or any moment that says something interesting about what life is like for you right now. Immediately after each photo, jot a sentence or two describing what it shows and why you chose it, while it’s still fresh in your mind.
3. At the end of the 24 hours, gather everything into one place — a folder or a single document — so you have your full set of photos and notes together and ready to review.
4. Look back through all your photos and notes. Using the ‘Photo Journal’ template, pull out the best photographs and most interesting observations onto the board, clustering them into themes. Make a note of anything that surprises you.
5. Try forming some insights by asking yourself why you think these things are happening. What does it tell you about what matters to you? Use the madlib below to guide you: “I wonder if this means that _____ (persona/character) wants _____ (action/situation) because _____ (aim/need/outcome) but _____ (restriction/obstacle/friction).”

Helpful tips

You and your team can conduct a photo study on your own or you can ask users to keep a photo journal to share with you.
You may want to use a consent form to support the photo journal task with legal permissions.
You can use the ‘Forming Insights’ template to provide further guidance for crafting meaningful insights.

Using this method in your day-to-day work

Photo journals are a powerful way to analyze real-life situations that intrigue or confuse you or are otherwise difficult to observe. So when you’re next in a position where you feel you want to understand more about a problem in your day-to-day life, or perhaps you’ve been struggling to crack something for some time, take out your phone and snap some pictures of the situation or subject. Remember to ask any people in your photographs for their consent, or make sure you don’t capture any faces. Then, spend some time looking at your images and analyzing the nuances you may not notice when witnessing them live. Using this template, dig deeper beyond what’s immediately apparent. You’ll be surprised by the intriguing things that begin to jump out at you and the insights they allow you to form.

Learning Lab

The lesson behind this method

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