Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is an innovation theory that is gaining popularity these days. It’s basic premise is very simple:

People hire products for a certain job

A product that doesn’t do the job well is fired, and another product is hired in its place. At the first glance this metaphor doesn’t seem to be groundbreaking or particularly insightful. After all, isn’t it obvious what jobs people hire products for? As it turns out, not always.

Professor Clayton Christensen, the author of JTBD theory, tells a story of working with McDonalds on improving the sales of their milkshakes. They been working at it for a while but got nowhere, not until Clayton and his team reframed the question they were asking from “How can we improve a milkshake?” to “What job do people hire milkshakes to do?”.

To answer this question Clayton’s team started observing buyers. They discovered a certain pattern: most milkshakes were sold early in the morning, buyers were alone, it was their only purchase, they bought the milk shake and drove off right away.

It turns out, the job that milkshake was hired to do was to accompany a lonely driver on their commute to work, to keep them engaged while driving, and to make them feel full until later in the day. Other products, like fruits, and donuts, just couldn’t do as good of a job as a milkshake.

With those insights it became obvious how to improve the milkshake, and how to increase sales.

Here is a video of Clayton telling the milkshake story. It is short, but quite insightful. Watch it, and let me know what you think!

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How does it apply to UX designers?

Let’s reverse the metaphor of Jobs to be Done and apply it to ourselves as UX designers. Why do companies hire UX designers? What is the job they are hiring us to do?

I promise I will give you my take on the Jobs to Be Done as they relate to UX designers, but before I do, I’d really like you to do one thing.

I’d like to you to study some job postings. Find 7-10 job postings for UX designer positions in your area, or in the area where you’d like to live and work. You might want to search for “UX Designer”, “UX/UI Designer”, “Interaction Designer”, “Interface Designer”, etc.

Study each of the job postings that looks interesting to you looking for the following:

• responsibilities

expected deliverables

work environment (who are you expected to collaborate with, etc)

Pay special attention to

• verbs describing responsibilities like delivers, creates, supports, etc.
• nouns describing expected output like wireframes, mocks, etc.
• adjectives related to the work environment like fast-paced, etc.

Look up any terms you might not be familiar with.

Ask yourself:

• what are the common things across the postings?
• what are the differences?

This might take some time, but it is a great exercise. Think of this as a mini research project.

Don’t worry about qualifications, and education requirements just yet. The point is to get a feel for the industry demand and some of the common lingo, and ultimately to look beyond black and white letters and to figure out what is the job they are really hiring UX designers for.

It might be tempting to skip over this part thinking that you already know. But like with any other research, the obvious is on the surface, and usually it is of little value. The gold is hidden, and needs to be dug for.

Please share your insights with me!

What UX designers really do

I promised to give you my take on Jobs To Be Done applied to UX designers, so here it is.

It is not news that UX designers are hired mostly by software development companies, be it startups or well established companies. These companies are built around a digital product, an application of some sort: web app, desktop, or mobile app. In some cases, products are also paired with services.

Let’s keep it simple for now, and focus on the products. Besides, designing services rarely falls on the plate of a UX designer.

Think about any app you use regularly. It is designed and built a certain way. It meets your needs as a user. Somehow it also meets the goals of the business, a company, that produced it.

From my experience, there are three major factors that shape products. Firstly, there is a demand, a market for it. That simply means, people want the product. In other words, it is desirable.

Secondly, it makes sense for the business, otherwise the operations will not be sustainable. It is viable.

And thirdly, it is possible technically within expertise, timelines and budget of a company. In other words, it can be done. It is feasible.

So we have three items: business, users, and technology. There are product owners, business analysts, and strategists that are responsible for the business side of things. There are developers and engineers responsible for the technical side.

It is tempting to think that designers are responsible for the user’s side. Some even say that designers are “advocates for the users”… In reality, UX design role lays on the intersection of the three:

That doesn’t mean UX designers are directly responsible for defining the business strategy, nor does it mean designers need to understand technology on par with developers and engineers.

If I were to write a job description for a UX role it would go something like this:

“Looking for a person who can work with the multidisciplinary team to understand business goals, user needs, and technical constraints, and design and deliver delightful products that meet and exceed users’ expectations”.

That’s it! I wouldn’t care to ask for more!

All the detailed requirements are important for a specific process that the company has in place, but the essence of the job is not in knowing how to wireframe or prototype or use a particular design tool. It is in ability to work with other team members to figure out what users need, and how to meet that need taking into account business goals and technical constraints.

That’s right: figure out! That is the actual job UX designers are hired for: to figure out what the product is, or how it can be improved, taking into account these three factors: business goals, user needs, and technical constraints…

And that is not something you will find in the job postings, at least not in plain words. That is understandable, no company wants to admit it doesn’t really know what it is doing. All it can do is admit, it needs help.

What about all those other requirements? You might be thinking – “They are asking for specific skills, tools, and a portfolio”… What about “conduct user research”, “create wireframes”, and so forth?”…We will get to that part soon. Believe me, it is actually an easy part of the job.

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