A Qualitative Diary Study of Learning Engagement and Application on HubSpot Academy
Context
At HubSpot Academy, our product and marketing teams each had partial insight into the learning journey: product focused on findability and UI experience, while marketing measured satisfaction after course completion. Academy lacked visibility into the holistic experience — how learners actually engaged with content day-to-day, what sustained motivation, and where learning broke down. I saw this opportunity area and led a generative research initiative to deeply observe learner behavior over time.
First, I wanted to understand how learners are currently consuming Academy content. Our product and marketing teams did not have research on the learner journey, only research regarding the findability of content on HubSpot Academy and learner satisfaction with Academy content after a course was complete.
Next, I wanted to understand why learners were not able to apply what they’ve learned on Academy into their professional roles. From previous research, I saw that one area where the Academy platform was underserved was in learners being able to apply what they’ve learned on the platform to the real world.
Due to the research objectives, I led a diary study to observe learner behavior over time. Rather than a one-time snapshot, this longitudinal approach via a diary study that allowed us to capture real-world learning moments, and emotional highs and lows.
Tools: Forsta Digital Diaries
Method Used: Diary Study
Participants: 6 Learners
Timeline: 3 months
Recruitment
6 learners were recruited to be apart of the diary study and they fell into 3 different categories of learning motivation:
First-time learners on HubSpot Academy
Current HubSpot Academy learners interested in upskilling in areas such as marketing, sales and development
Current Hubspot Academy learners interested in developing Hubspot CRM skills
Participants were given 2 parameters to follow:
Participants were required to complete 4 hours of learning per week
Participants were given free reign on content that they wanted to complete
Diary Study
In order to keep learners on track and get relevant information, I provided diary prompts (seen below). Depending on participant’s answer to the initial prompt, I provided follow up questions to answer. This method provide a self-reported and longitudinal record of user behaviors and attitudes that researchers can analyze to better understand habits and patterns.
Results
For each participant that went through the diary study, I was able to create individual journey maps that showed the learner’s experience over the course of 2-weeks when learning on HubSpot Academy.
During the readout, I presented the themes that I observed from the 6 participants over the course of their learning journeys and created a list of prioritized recommendations for the team that was then logged in Jira.
Because I had kept stakeholders in the loop during this project, even before the presentation was given, our marketing and design teams were already making progress on some recommendations.
Impact
After the readout was presented, I was able to observe the impact of this project with new content that was being provided on HubSpot Academy.
Academy launched their first ever video with a Hubspot partner who taught users how to set up an integration with a data warehouse and other ways Go-To-Market teams can action on that data.
This content was practical, focused on a goal, and incorporated knowledge checks and assessments throughout the course, all areas that was identified as needing to be improved on Academy’s platform.
This research didn’t just inform incremental improvements — it helped shape the foundation of HubSpot Academy’s broader platform redesign.
Shortly after the study, HubSpot launched a new Academy experience with a simplified navigation, smarter content filters, and more personalized course recommendations.
These updates aligned directly with the insights from our diary study — specifically the need to make content easier to find, more relevant to learner goals, and more intuitive to navigate.