Mobile ethnography is qualitative research where participants record their own lives on their phone. Instead of a researcher visiting a home, the participant films the kitchen, the shop or the commute when it happens, and explains it in their own words. With Zolensa, an agency plans the tasks, invites people by email, WhatsApp or text message, and reviews every video, photo and voice note as it arrives.
When to use mobile ethnography
Mobile ethnography works best when you need to see behaviour in context, not just hear about it later. Typical projects:
- Routines and rituals: breakfast, laundry, skincare, cleaning, cooking for the family.
- Category exploration: how people store, use and talk about a product in their own home.
- Moments of need: when a problem appears, what people try first, and what they reach for.
- Life stages and change: moving house, a new baby, starting a job, a new diet.
- Several markets at once: the same tasks in any of 30 participant languages, so you compare like with like.
It is lighter than in-person ethnography. You can reach more people in more places, for longer, and the footage is ready for the debrief without a camera crew.
How a study runs on Zolensa
- Write the tasks. Each task opens on a given day of the study, such as "Day 2: show us where you keep your snacks". A task holds one or more questions: a video, photos, a voice note, a choice or a rating.
- Translate. Write once in your main language, then translate the tasks with AI or export them for a translator. Check each language on a phone preview.
- Invite. Add participants or import a spreadsheet from your recruiter. Each person gets a personal link and signs the consent form in their language.
- Capture. Tasks open day by day from each person's own start, in their own time zone. Participants get one reminder when a task opens, never at night.
- Review as you go. Videos arrive with transcripts. Ask a follow-up question about one answer, tag what you see and mark the key moments.
- Analyse and report. Let AI suggest themes with the quotes and clips behind them, build a highlight reel, and export answers and files for the report.
Zolensa features that help
- Record in the moment. On a phone the camera opens straight away. You choose whether older videos from the gallery are allowed, so you get today, not last summer.
- Repeatable tasks. "Every time you snack" can be sent many times, up to a limit you set.
- Participant groups. Give users and non-users, or each market, their own tasks.
- Follow-up questions. Ask about one answer and get the reply in the same thread.
- Transcripts and translation. Every video and voice note is transcribed and translated into your main language, with times to jump to each moment.
- Highlights and reels. Mark a moment with a start, an end and a note, then join the best ones into one video with subtitles.
- Client view. Your client follows the study as it runs, with participants shown by code only.
Plan for these
- Keep tasks short. Two to four minutes a day keeps people going for two or three weeks. Ask for one thing per video.
- Say what to film. "Show us the cupboard, then tell us what you would buy again" gives better footage than "tell us about snacks".
- Mix formats. A photo of the fridge, a voice note on the way home and a short video in the evening tire people less than three videos.
- Watch the first day closely. Early answers show whether a task is clear. Fix wording before most people reach it.
- Think about privacy at home. Ask people not to film others who have not agreed. Zolensa removes the location from photos, but faces and letters on the table stay in the picture.
