It's 3am and I should be snuggled up in bed, but when the inspiration strikes... Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is one of the toys in our Digital playpen that has become broken due to popularity, trend and scale

As a concept, the milkshake scenario description, it's brilliant for characterising user need, I don't think there's very much better

However, everything that follows from there becomes an over engineered, over developed, exaggerated, interpreted sprawling mess of management consultant models and jargon

Answer me truthfully: have you ever created a JTBD persona that is solely data driven without any made up stuff in there?

I ask because I don't think that it is reasonably possible without excessive research requirements, so people fill in the blanks with fairytales and bad things happen - and with a long long time delay so that the bang isn't associated with the fairytales and badness continues

Getting Product people into user needs is a great thing, but JTBD is not the way to do it. The personae just don't work, and in most cases, ime, are straight up liabilities. Too complicated, asking too much for questionable value, asking for things that you have to be psychic or have a wiretap to get.

What is really important on a persona sheet are the needs, pains and context. Everything else is of secondary importance, and if you don't have data for it, don't put it in there. Personae should be data driven containers of insight, not interesting stories that someone made up (hey wait, I smell AI...)

Most importantly, and this is the moneyshot:

What are you doing with your personae? Who is using them? What is happening as a result of them being used? These aren't BS questions, because usually the answers are weak, like 'informing the team' or some other meh.

The main reason for a persona is for the researcher's design partner, to succinctly and clearly transfer the absolute core of the insight, the stuff that the designer will need to design from. The rest of the stuff, around influencing the team and wider org is great, but secondary. The designer is the main user, and if they aren't, they darn well should be!

JTBD personae are a nightmare/impossible for the designer to work with, to design from. A simpler needs/pains/context persona is far more effective, easier for the researcher to produce and better for the designer to consume and work with.

Remember, UX is always about simplification and making things better. Digital makes things more complicated and usually worse...Agile, Product, UX...all became super overcomplicated from being oversold and diversified for ownership and profit.

This is how we win. Research into Design. Research & Design partnership. This is real UX. This is User Centric Design (UCD). Welcome to the party, you're a little late but better late than never 🎉
#collected