These attributes are abstract concepts, which makes the creation of personas an incredibly complex undertaking. They establish models of the traits, or attributes, of particular groups of users. Personas function as proxies for real-world users in aggregate, representing their mental states and behavioral inclinations within a specific setting and timeframe-that is, a user interface or designed experience. As a result, I decided to write this article, which provides a detailed discussion that focuses primarily on the advantages that the JTBD perspective affords over personas. This last point has inspired some feedback from colleagues and other UX professionals who are already comfortable with creating personas and prickled at the suggestion that JTBD can provide the advantages of these structures with fewer of their inherent weaknesses. In the article, I posited that these methods and artifacts offer a better way of providing usable research findings to stakeholders than other methods of disseminating the results of deep-dive, generative, user research-particularly personas. The article described how the organizational components and the corresponding artifacts of the JTBD method-that is, the Jobs Atlas-empower stakeholders to develop an empathetic understanding of users and help UX researchers make granular, tactical decisions.

In a prior article I wrote for UXmatters, “ Presenting UX Research Findings Using the Jobs to Be Done Framework,” I discussed the benefits of using the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework when sharing findings from generative UX research.

Jobs to be done