The Jobs to be Done framework, developed by Clayton Christensen and colleagues at Harvard Business School, reframes how designers and product teams understand user motivation. Instead of asking who the user is, it asks what job the user is hiring a product or service to do. This shift in perspective cuts through demographic thinking and gets to the functional, social, and emotional progress that users are genuinely trying to make. It has proven particularly powerful for identifying innovation opportunities that demographic segmentation consistently misses.
Jobs to be Done
Understanding what users are really trying to accomplish
A
Designers Academy
20 May 2026 · 5 min read
UXMethods
In brief
The Jobs to be Done framework helps designers understand user motivation by identifying the functional, social, and emotional progress users aim to achieve when 'hiring' a product or service.
