Open vs Guided vs Flexible Journal or Diary Study

Choose an open journal when you are exploring and don’t yet know what matters; it gives rich stories that are harder to compare. Choose a guided journal when your questions are defined and you need comparable answers across participants, segments or time periods. Choose a flexible journal when you need both: scheduled prompts for consistency plus room for unexpected insights. Five questions decide the method: what your team already knows, how much you need to compare, how well-defined your questions are, how often participants should record, and how much guidance they need. Setting up a journal study on Terapage takes nine steps, from defining objectives to sharing AI-powered findings with stakeholders.