Empathy & Customer Discovery

Jobs to be Done Canvas

The ‘Jobs to be Done' framework helps you to understand what your users need from the solution you're designing for them.

Video tutorial

Why do you use it?

This framework suggests that users employ any product, service or solution to do certain kinds of  'jobs' for them - your car does the functional job of getting you from A to B, for example, but maybe also the social job of showing your personality, or the emotional job of making you feel safe on the road. Understanding your user's 'jobs to be done' can help you to design a solution that does all the jobs your users want it to do.

When to use it:

The 'Jobs to be Done' Canvas is most helpful in the empathy and define stages of the design process, when you're trying to understand and clearly frame what your users need from a solution to the challenge at hand.

How to use it:

This canvas has been designed to help you understand the 'jobs' a given solution needs to do for the user or customer, and for the organisation delivering the solution.

  • Functional jobs for the user: This box is about what your solution needs to achieve for the user on a functional level. Think about what this solution is for, at its most basic.
  • Social and emotional jobs for the user: This box is about how your solution needs to make the user feel (for example, powerful, relieved, or connected), and what it might need to help them communicate to others (i.e. their personality or style, or how they'd like to be perceived in different contexts).
  • Functional jobs for the delivery organisation: This box is about what your solution needs to achieve on a functional level for the delivery organisation (whether that's you, your team/organisation, or the client you're designing for). Profitability is often a feature here, but aspects like production and delivery costs, simplicity, scalability and more can also come into play.
  • Social and emotional jobs for the delivery organisation: This box typically centres on the 'social' jobs that a solution does for the delivery organisation in terms of communicating their brand to users and the world. However, for service solutions it can also include the emotional jobs to be done for the people who will directly deliver the service (for example, making a service feel less frustrating or even fun to deliver).
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Workshop Playshop

View over 40+  design and innovation tools and techniques at our Workshop Playshop library.

VIEW WORKSHOP PLAYSHOP

Jobs to be Done Canvas

Workshop Playshop

View over 40+  design and innovation tools and techniques at our Workshop Playshop library.

VIEW WORKSHOP PLAYSHOP