--- title: "Jobs to be Done" url: "https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/jobs-to-be-done" language: "en" description: "What does Jobs to be Done mean in UX design? Explained with job stories, an example and practical tips. Learn why people “hire” products for a job." published: "2026-10-14T09:50:32+02:00" updated: "2026-10-14T13:03:47+02:00" --- # Jobs to be Done Jobs to be Done is a way of thinking that asks what task people want to get done with a product and what progress they’re trying to make in their situation. It focuses on context and motivation rather than traits like age or job title. - **Buchstabe:** J UX glossary # Jobs to be Done Jobs to be Done is a way of thinking that asks what task people want to get done with a product and what progress they’re trying to make in their situation. It focuses on context and motivation rather than traits like age or job title. Imagine it’s 7:30 in the morning and you’re at the hardware store buying a drill. You don’t actually want a drill. You want to get a shelf up on the wall so the boxes in the hallway finally disappear. The drill is just the means. If a good adhesive hook were just as sturdy, you’d buy that instead. ## Explained simply Jobs to be Done, or JTBD for short, is a way of thinking that asks exactly this question: What task does a person want to get done, and what progress are they trying to make in their situation? According to this approach, people “hire” products for a “job.” If a product does the job well, it gets hired again. If it does a poor job, it gets fired and replaced with something else. The approach was popularized above all by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. Together with colleagues, he described it in the Harvard Business Review in 2016. The Christensen Institute stresses that every job has a functional, a social and an emotional side. So someone putting up a shelf may not just want more space, but also a home that looks tidy when guests come over. ## The famous milkshake example The most frequently cited story is about a fast-food chain that wanted to sell more milkshakes. Asking people about the perfect milkshake got nowhere. Things only got interesting when a research team watched when and why people actually bought shakes: a large share went to commuters early in the morning who came alone and took the shake to go. They wanted something to fill a long, boring drive to work, had only one free hand and needed something to keep them full until late morning. So the shake wasn’t competing with other shakes. It was competing with bagels and doughnuts. ## Job stories: JTBD in everyday design work In UX design, JTBD is often captured in so-called job stories. The format comes from the team at software company Intercom and follows the pattern: “When \[situation\], I want to \[motivation\], so I can \[outcome\].” Unlike a classic user story, the focus isn’t on a role but on the moment the need arises. That makes JTBD a good complement to the [persona](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/persona): the persona shows who someone is, while the job story shows what that person wants to achieve in a specific situation. ## An example A team is building a banking app. Before, the backlog says: “As a customer, I want an overview of my spending.” The result is a chart that hardly anyone opens. After interviews, the team writes a job story: “When money gets tight at the end of the month, I want to quickly see where it went, so I can decide what to cut back on until payday.” Now the solution looks different: an alert when the balance drops unusually fast, and a list of the biggest expenses over the last few days. The feature responds to a real situation rather than an abstract role. For how to approach the interviews behind it, see [What Does a UX Researcher Do?](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/blog/what-does-a-ux-researcher-do) ## In practice - **Ask about the moment.** In interviews, have people walk you through the last specific time they had the problem. General wishes reveal less than a real sequence of events. - **Think about every alternative.** Your product also competes with spreadsheets, sticky notes or simply doing nothing. Ask what people use today instead of your solution. - **Keep jobs solution-neutral.** A job describes the goal, not the feature. “I want to know where my money went” leaves room for more solutions than “I want a chart.” ## Related terms [Persona](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/persona), [User Research](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/user-research), [Journey Map](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/journey-map) ## Sources - [Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan: Know Your Customers’ “Jobs to Be Done.” Harvard Business Review, 2016](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done) - [Carmen Nobel: Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2011](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing) - [Christensen Institute: Jobs to Be Done Theory](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/) - [Paul Adams: How we accidentally invented Job Stories. Intercom, 2016](https://www.intercom.com/blog/accidentally-invented-job-stories/) ## More terms [ ### A/B Testing An A/B test is an experiment that shows two versions of a page or element at the same time to randomly split groups of visitors. It lets you decide with real data which version works better. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/a-b-testing) [ ### Accessibility Accessibility means designing websites, apps and digital documents so that everyone can use them, including people with visual, hearing, motor or cognitive disabilities. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/accessibility) [ ### Affordance An affordance describes what action an object makes possible and whether people can recognize it: a button invites you to press it, a handle invites you to pull. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/affordance) [ ### Card Sorting Card sorting is a research method in which people sort terms written on cards into groups. It shows you how they mentally organize content, so you can plan navigation that makes sense to them. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/card-sorting) [ ### Cognitive Load Cognitive load is the mental effort it takes to understand and use an interface. The less unnecessary thinking a design demands, the easier the actual task becomes. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/cognitive-load) [ ### Dark Patterns Dark patterns are design tricks that push people into decisions they don’t actually want to make, like hidden cancellation options or preselected add-ons. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/dark-patterns) [ ### Design System A design system is a shared toolkit of reusable building blocks and rules. It helps teams design and build interfaces that look and behave consistently everywhere. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/design-system) [ ### Fitts’ Law Fitts’ Law describes how long it takes to hit a target with a movement: the bigger and closer the target, the faster and more reliably you reach it. In UX design, it helps you size and place buttons and links. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/fitts-law) [ ### Gestalt Principles The Gestalt principles describe how your brain automatically groups individual elements into wholes and shapes. In design, they help you structure layouts clearly without extra lines or borders. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/gestalt-principles) [ ### Heuristic Evaluation In a heuristic evaluation, experts review an interface against established rules of thumb for good usability. It helps you find typical weak spots quickly and cheaply, even before real people test the product. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/heuristic-evaluation) [ ### Hick’s Law Hick’s Law states that decisions take longer the more equally likely options there are. Decision time grows much more slowly than the number of options, though. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/hicks-law) [ ### Information Architecture Information architecture describes how the content of a website or app is structured and labeled. It helps people find what they’re looking for and understand where they are. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/information-architecture)