"Over the next [duration], I want [who] to [active language] [frequency] moments when [trigger].”

This statement will ground and focus your team, and help you frame the study so participants know exactly what you expect from them. After you have a rough draft of your contextual research statement, move to the things you'd like to know—the things you want them to SHOW you.

In the simplest form, triggers are created by adding a "When..." to your activity's description. However, triggers can be nuanced depending on the research interests of your organization.

Triggers can be specific and granular or high-altitude and expansive, as seen in these examples:

• Product usage triggers ask participants to focus on their interactions with a specific product, service, or category of products. For example, "...when you're using the Uber app."
• Behavioral triggers are grounded in a specific action, such as "...when you need to get somewhere quickly."
• Location triggers ask participants to document experiences in specific places, e.g. "...when you're leaving work."
• Cognitive triggers focus on the intuitions, perceptions, and attitudes of participants, such as "...when you're thinking about privacy."
• Emotional triggers rely on how participants are feeling in specific moments, e.g. "...when you're feeling rushed or hurried."

The combination of active language with triggers creates the prompts that participants will use to gather the context you crave. Active language grounds the data in the experiences of interest, while triggers provide guardrails and prime participants to know when the moment is just right.