Jobs to be Done 101 - 100 Days of Design, Writing & Emotions

The shortest possible guide to get you started using the framework in your UX process. Let's jump in ↓



JTBD 101

One-sentence-summary: Users visit a site or use a product to complete a job or series of jobs In UX, you can ask: what are the common jobs users are trying to accomplish Then design flows and interfaces that make it easy for the user to complete the job(s)



Example of JTBD using AirBnB

• Search for rooms to book

• View bookings

• Message host



Finally, the JBTD framework can be used during the testing part of the UX process, to evaluate whether or not the design changes made will help the user to get the job done



❓ Question: what's the difference between JTBD and user journeys?

→ A user journey map is used to observe common patterns. The JTBD framework is much more focused on the end goal the user wants to achieve.



(h/t to the Process Slack channel for the discussion that helped me under the above)



Story-Time

Clayton Christensen & Milkshakes

McDonald's used to ask the quintessential milkshake buyer: "tell us how you'd improve milkshakes?" They got great answers but when they implemented the suggestions they saw no change in sales. Clayton came in and suggested they try something different. He said: "don't try to understand the customer, understand the job"

"There's got to be a job needing to be done that is causing people to hire a milkshake to complete it"



So, Clayton's team got some poor guy to stand in McDees for 13hrs and observe customers buying milkshakes (observational research) to answer questions like: → When did they buy the milkshake? → Did they drink in the restaurant or takeaway? → Did they buy anything else?

Turns out people were buying milkshakes early in the morning and taking them to their cars.



Hmmm, what gives?



To find out Clayton's team cornered customers as they were leaving and asked questions like: → why did you buy the milkshake in the morning? → Think about the last time you needed to get the same job done but you didn't come here to hire the milkshake, what did you hire?" Understandably, the customers were confused. But with guidance they gave answers. The job? A long, boring drive to work. They needed something to do while they were driving to keep engaged with life and not fall asleep.

Let's check this with Clayton's defintion a Job:

Every day stuff happens to us. Jobs arise in our lives that we need to get done. Some are little jobs, some are big ones. Some jobs surface unpredictably. Other times we know they’re coming. When we realize we have a job to do, we reach out and pull something into our lives to get the job done. - Clayton

Yep, that tracks.



So, the people buying the milkshake needed a bit of life (sugar hit) to keep them going while they did their morning commutte and they also needed something to stay in their stomach till they had breakfast around 10 am. So, at 7 am, then they still weren't hungry, a milkshake did the job. Next, Clayton also asked: "what do you hire for the job when you don't hire a milkshake?"

🍌 People said they hired bananas.. but ended hungry in 10 minutes later 🍩 Donuts did the job but they make your fingers gooey and they're gone too fast

🥯Bagels are an option but they're dry and tasteless (also you have to put the bagel on your knee to spread jam while driving. Sounds messy)

Turns out the milkshake does the job better than any of the competitors. The competitors though aren't what you'd expect. They're not burger king or KFC milkshakes. They're the bananas, donuts and other foods people used to complete the same job: providing engagement and sustanance.

Here's why the milkshake is the best fit for the job: → Viscous - takes 23 minutes to suck up (lasts the drive) → Fits in the car's cup holder → It doesn't spill/fall out if accidentally tipped sideways Alright, question time - pause before moving on to answer: How would you improve the milkshake to better fulfil the morning job?

Understand what the job is that the customer is trying to do then it becomes clear what you have to do, to do the job perfectly



To improve the milkshake you could:

→ make it thicker → stir in chunks of fruit (not to make it healthy since that's not why it's being hired) but to add predictability to the morning drive. "I'm driving along and I suck a piece of fruit and get re-engaged with life." → have a dispensing machine to avoid queuing

I'll leave you with 2 final interesting thought from the video:

1] When McDees framed the market as a job to be done, their sales increased by x4 overnight.



Why? because the sum of the milkshake market is bigger than milkshakes since the market includes portions of bananas, donuts, bagels and snickers etc

2] “The customer rarely buys what the company thinks it’s selling”

You're now ready to use the JTBD framework in your UX process.



Resources:

• Intercom Jobs to Be Done

• The Jobs to Be Done Playbook by Jim Kalbach (h/t James Mulholland)

• When Coffee and Kale Compete (h/t Fraser Deans)



Emotions

I'm pretty tired. I'm likely pushing myself too hard, even if I've taken my foot off the pedal a little. Eased the pressure but there's still a lot of pressure. Overall, I feel better than I've felt in weeks. Still, the last 3 months have been mad (here's a small snippet of what I've been up to + burnout + political and social context = 🤯)

I'm torn between resting and feeling as I'm moving slowly and potentially resting a lot more than it appears. I'm also aware that saying I'm resting too much is harsh and not very kind-to-self. At the same time, I've been working on the MVP portfolio for a long time and haven't crazy progress yet (but I've made some progress for sure).



Hmmm, you see. I keep going in circles. Overall, I'm going to try to err on the side of more rest. Wish me luck.