Needs, Jobs, and Behaviours — what’s the difference and why does it matter?
Insights come in all shapes and sizes. Having a shared language to refer to and compare them not only makes synthesising easier but helps expose gaps in your organisations knowledge.
The above visualisation points to a set of example insights associated with buying a car. Whilst all share a red thread — their value, scope and relationship to each other and Tesla differ.
That’s why for this exercise I wanted to pick apart different types of insights in a way that gives you broader vocabulary. One that lends itself to the aforementioned goals — synthesising and identifying knowledge gaps.
Here are six types of insights that have helped me make sense of what is known / unknown about a user (or human — more on that in a moment!):
(1) Core Needs
These typically go hand in hand with foundational research. Core Needs are agnostic to solutions. Any piece of research no matter how specific can always be anchored back to a Core Need. They are usually formatted in a way that sounds like: “I want to support my family”.
(2) Jobs To Be Done
More situational and directional than Core Needs as they invite ideation and exploration. Similar to user stories as they speak to a task. Usually formatted in a way that sounds like: “I want to be able to get from A to B, in a way that is good for the environment, and is affordable to me”.
(3) Motivations and Anxieties
These are in response to a product or service. Motivations are tailwinds that compel people to move through the funnel “Tesla cars look so cool”. Whilst Anxieties create friction “I worry a Tesla will run out of battery”.
Adding a bit of colour
The y axis of Human to User related creates a powerful lens to all of this. It’s inspired by both Simon Roberts’ The UX-ification of research and Indi Young’s User Research Only Covers Users. Both of these articles point to the forfeiting of ethnographic side in replacement of “moving fast and breaking things”.
Whilst this stack of insight terms goes beyond capturing what a user is saying, seeing and feeling when interacting with a prototype — it lowlights the complexity of behaviours and factors that help organisations better understand people and their lives. Hence these are last three terms I want to cover off:
(4) Behaviours
Behaviours can straddle multiple of the above terms and express something more complex: “I love taking my children away on road trips at the weekend”.
(5) Internal and (6) External Factors
Behaviours capture how a Need comes to life, factors (much like scenarios) can paint a picture of the why. An internal factor could be: “I only see my children every other weekend as I’m divorced”. Whilst external “There’s no charging stations where I live”.
Whilst all terms offer houses to hold synthesised information — needs, jobs, motivations and anxieties feel more like lego blocks. Whereas behaviours and factors feel either more fluid / harder to put into a box. Regardless, once you’ve established a shared vocabulary and hierarchy it creates an opportunity to tag to your insights which in turn becomes a powerful mechanism to gather, synthesize and identify gaps in knowledge.
One last thought I’ll drop here. Research doesn’t exist in vacuum. How insights are used can be a complex activity in itself. Below I’ve explored how three scopes of work — Strategic, Discovery and Execution — relate to the different types of insights.
I hope this exercise sparked some thoughts for you and how your organisation refers to the knowledge you have or don’t have of your intended users.
If you’re interested in building upon this or have a different (constructive!) view then I’d love to hear it.
Ps — thanks to Johannes Hoseth to prompting this exercise!
