I think this is a fascinating project, but I have to ask. How do you get your foot in the door with consumers? I'd feel a bit sketched out if someone showed up and just asked to follow me around for a while. What's the incentive?
I have done a lot of consumer research for a previous job - I honestly think if you give someone an ear to talk to about almost anything a lot of people will do it.
With that being said, you might get a handful of, "no, absolutely not that's creepy" responses to the request, but if you ask enough people someone will say yes and be excited about it.
Getting started was (really) hard. There are agencies out there who enable the connection between the researcher and consumers for a fee. These agencies usually have a directory of people who volunteer for this type of research work.
It also helps to build a network, for starters I partner-up with many prominent content producers on YouTube and Twitter and pay them a small fee for introductions.
I also pay the people I study on the field (but not always, some are happy to help once they understand what it's for). A lot say no, but you only need a few yes. It's about drawing insights from a small set of data.
