Reddit for research

I’ve been using Reddit, and other online community forums, for my thesis user research on adults newly-diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and their food shopping experiences. Online community forums are an excellent way to learn about people’s lives, and I’ve been finding forum posts where members have been writing pages of information about their experiences coping with their type 2 diabetes diagnosis. People who are newly-diagnosed find these posts very helpful, especially because the people posting to the forums are not doctors, they are patients going through the same emotional and physical rollercoasters. I’ve been using these forums to flesh out my user journey maps and personas. Here is a screenshot of how I’ve dissected a Reddit forum post to develop a user journey map (first draft).