Retrospective Cued Recall: A Method for Accurately Recalling Previous User Behaviors

A common problem in many user studies is gathering natural user behavior unintrusively over a long period of time. We describe a methodology for conducting passive longitudinal studies, where the participant is able to go about their daily routine without taking any disruptive action such as writing a diary entry or responding to an interruption. Although passive user observations have been done through log analysis, our retrospective cued recall (RCR) method recorded participant screens over a month long period linked to logged trigger events, allowing for a later review that was is guided by retrospective recall as cued by the images of screen captures. We find this method of gathering user behaviors to be remarkably accurate, despite fairly lengthy delays between action and recall.