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Job Stories

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Defining design problems based on user motivation and situation can facilitate team discussion about finding the best solution

Writing job stories helps the team to discuss potential design solutions while building a product. Each job story explores a user's situation, motivations and goals, alongside the expected outcome of using a product. This becomes a specific design issue to solve.

The structure is as follows:

"When _, I want to _, so I can _"

For example:

"When I find an interesting article but I don't have time to read it (situation), I want to save the link (motivation) so I can read it when I have some free time (expected outcome)."

The challenge is described as a need that a user might have in a specific context / situation, then what outcome they expect. But, it doesn't indicate the specific implementation needed. In the example above, it doesn't specify the solution should be a mobile app, browser plugin or bookmark. This means the design issue is left open for discussion, so the team can find the best solution(s) without any initial restrictions. Refusing to specify a user type is another advantage of job stories. This helps avoid assumptions based on personas. Instead, the design issue is focused on the concrete causality of the user's need.

Job stories are often presented as an alternative to user stories. But the two tools can be used together. Writing job stories can be used to define goals. Then, user stories help describe the features that will address each goal.

Job Stories were first mentioned by Paul Adams on the Intercom blog.

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