Goal

With this exercise, you get an understanding of what a typical day looks like for your user or stakeholder. It is a great tool to use as one of the activities during an individual interview, to get a general introduction to the context and daily life of the user that you can follow up with more in-depth questions.

Generally, a Day in the Life exercise can be of use if:
⦾ Your research topic is focused on the routine activities of your user, such as their cooking behaviour, daily commute or childcare activities.
⦾ You are researching user behaviour in a specific scenario, for example, a farmer’s activities during the weekly market day.
⦾ You want to identify when and where you can best engage with your user group, for example, at which moment in the day or at what place a food business can sell to its customers.

Time

The activity averagely takes 10-30 mins.

Materials

⦾ A4 template (printed or drawn on paper),
⦾ Pen and post-its
⦾ Small round stickers with happy and sad faces

Instructions

Attachments

You can download it in various formats below.

Tool Cases

Explore real-world applications of the day in the life tool from the Proportion Global Community below. We also encourage you to upload your tool cases!

Day in the life of a Colombian leg amputee