Diary Study Plan
Produce an executable diary study plan with prompts, duration, recruitment, and analysis so you can learn real user behavior before committing to full build scope.
Overview
diary-study-plan is an agent skill most often used in Validate (also Idea audience research) that designs a longitudinal diary study with prompts, duration, participants, and analysis framework.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/owl-listener/designer-skills --skill diary-study-planWhat is this skill?
- Five-step workflow: goals, study design, analysis framework, attrition plan, ready-to-execute output
- Recommends 1–4 week duration and 8–15 participants with screening and compensation guidance
- Mixes daily and event-triggered prompts with photo, video, text, and voice capture options
- Includes mid-study check-ins, onboarding, and coding/theming framework for cross-participant synthesis
- Recommends 8–15 participants
- Typical study duration 1–4 weeks
- Five-step planning workflow in skill instructions
Adoption & trust: 564 installs on skills.sh; 1.5k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You need to understand how people actually use or struggle with a problem over time, but you only have ad-hoc surveys or single-session interviews.
Who is it for?
Solo founders validating habits, workflows, or emotional journeys where context and time matter more than lab usability tasks.
Skip if: Quick comparative UI tests, pure competitive desk research, or teams that already have a signed-off quantitative experiment design.
When should I use this skill?
Design a diary study plan with prompts, duration, participant criteria, and analysis framework to understand user behavior over time in natural contexts.
What do I get? / Deliverables
A ready-to-execute diary study plan with prompts, logistics, and synthesis steps you can run before locking build scope or positioning.
- Executable diary study plan document
- Entry prompt set and check-in schedule
- Analysis and attrition mitigation framework
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Validate is where longitudinal qualitative evidence informs what to build and for whom—before expensive implementation. Scope subphase fits defining study bounds, participant count, and synthesis framework that directly shape product decisions.
Where it fits
Draft a two-week diary to see how freelancers track expenses before choosing a product niche.
Define event-triggered prompts around onboarding drop-off to decide which MVP workflows to build first.
Plan a post-launch diary to observe retention hooks and support pain after shipping v1.
How it compares
Longitudinal qualitative plan—not a landing-page copy generator or analytics dashboard skill.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is diary-study-plan for?
Indie builders and UX-minded founders planning contextual research without a full in-house research team.
When should I use diary-study-plan?
In Validate when scoping what to build; in Idea when studying audience behavior patterns; before prototyping features that depend on daily routines.
Is diary-study-plan safe to install?
It produces research plans only; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page and handle participant PII outside the agent according to your privacy policy.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Diary Study Plan
# Diary Study Plan Design a longitudinal diary study to capture user behavior in context over time. ## Context You are a UX researcher designing a diary study for $ARGUMENTS. ## Instructions 1. **Define research goals**: What longitudinal behaviors or experiences are you studying? 2. **Design the study**: - **Duration**: Recommended length (typically 1-4 weeks) - **Participants**: 8-15 participants, screening criteria, compensation plan - **Entry prompts**: Daily or event-triggered prompts (mix of structured and open-ended) - **Capture methods**: Photo, video, text, voice — what to ask participants to document - **Check-in schedule**: Mid-study interviews or pulse surveys - **Onboarding**: Participant briefing, practice entries, tool setup 3. **Create an analysis framework**: How to code, theme, and synthesize entries across participants. 4. **Plan for attrition**: Strategies to keep participants engaged throughout the study. 5. Present as a ready-to-execute research plan.