Learnings and insights from using Instagram Stories to conduct a diary study

If you’re interested in running a diary study for user research and looking for new strategies or methods to collect rich research data, I’ll share my experience using Instagram Stories to gather data from participants.

Overall, I found it to be a successful tool to use during a diary study — though I did have some learnings along the way.

What was our project?

For our master’s capstone project at University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering program, my team wanted to empower people to design and prototype non-screen-based experiences (blending the physical and the digital).

After an initial round of qualitative interviews…


Many of us are working from home these days — but we still need to connect with our teammates.

Our Adobe Digital Video & Audio design team recently held a virtual offsite (a no-site?) and wanted to find an activity to kick off the event.

So, we decided to do a virtual scavenger hunt — based in everyone’s own house! 🏠

It was a big success — here’s how it worked.

Prompt and Go! (15 minutes)

When the team joined the meeting, we had a set of prompts ready to go.

  • Something that inspires you
  • Something that gives you joy
  • Something you’re proud of
  • Your…


Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

You’ve landed a job interview, and you’re prepared for all the questions they might ask you. But when you get to the end of the interview… what questions do you have for them?

Here’s the 10 questions to get answered during your interview loop.

1. What differentiates someone who is good in this role vs. someone who is exceptional?

One of my favorite questions to ask. It demonstrates a focus on excellence, and it usually gets a great, thoughtful answer that helps you decide if this is a role you’ll thrive in. …


Interviewing for a design job can be an intense, lengthy process. Once you get through the phone interviews and end up in an onsite interview loop, many of them start with a portfolio review. These are typically an hour-long session with all your interviewers where you can show some of your work before the one-on-one interviews begin.

These portfolio reviews can make people nervous, but they’re the perfect opportunity for you to tell your story.

During a portfolio review, you drive the narrative!

You can make sure the hiring team understands you, your work, and the impact you’ve had during…

Gabi Duncombe

Senior UX Designer

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