Research Governance

Jobs to Be Done

Jobs to Be Done is a product and service framing approach that focuses on the progress a person is trying to make in a specific situation, rather than only on user attributes or product features.

Concept facts

Jobs to Be Done is a product and service framing approach that focuses on the progress a person is trying to make in a specific situation, rather than only on user attributes or product features.

Also known as
JTBD, job theory, customer job, job statement.
Used in
Product discovery, UX strategy, service design, innovation, opportunity framing, research synthesis, and requirements planning.
Interpret with
User need, problem statement, opportunity area, persona, assumption mapping, outcome metric, and user requirement.

Plain-language explanation

Jobs to Be Done asks what a person is trying to accomplish and why the situation creates demand for a product, service, or workaround. It can help teams understand motivation and context, but it should be supported by evidence.

Why it matters

Teams often define products through features or user categories. JTBD can shift attention toward the real progress users seek and reveal why users switch channels, contact support, delay action, or use informal workarounds.

Use contexts

  • exploring why users adopt, avoid, or abandon a service
  • framing product or service opportunities
  • comparing user motivations across channels
  • translating research into value propositions or requirements
  • understanding workarounds and switching behaviour
  • clarifying what progress users seek in high-friction journeys

Application guidance

Use JTBD as one framing lens, not the only research method. Ground job statements in interviews, observation, support data, analytics, or service evidence. Capture the situation, motivation, desired progress, and consequence.

Practical example

A telco self-service app shows low adoption for SIM replacement requests. Research finds that users do not primarily want to “request a SIM.” They want to restore access quickly after losing a phone, while protecting their number and avoiding fraud. The job framing helps the team prioritise identity reassurance, replacement status, expected activation time, and fraud warnings. The UX consequence is higher trust, lower support escalation, reduced service-access delay, and clearer recovery expectations.

Interpretive boundaries

Jobs to Be Done is not a replacement for user research, accessibility review, usability testing, or service design. It should not be treated as universally superior to personas or user needs.

Applied at Userhub

Userhub uses Jobs to Be Done as a framing lens where it helps explain user motivation, adoption, channel choice, or workaround behaviour. In UX Lab work, JTBD can support discovery and strategy when used alongside research findings and service evidence.

See Userhub UX Lab for applied UX research and evaluation context.

Sources and references

Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Competing against luck: The story of innovation and customer choice. HarperBusiness.

Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Know your customers’ “jobs to be done.” Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done

Gothelf, J., & Seiden, J. (2021). Lean UX: Designing great products with agile teams (3rd ed.). O’Reilly Media.

Cite this entry

APA

Userhub. (2026). Jobs to Be Done. UX Reference. https://userhub.com.bd/reference/jobs-to-be-done/