Customer Research & Personas

Personas based on demographics are useless. Personas based on behaviors, goals, and constraints drive decisions. This skill helps you run interviews, apply Jobs-to-be-Done, and build personas that actually inform your product.

Core Principles

• Personas based on demographics are useless. "34-year-old male marketer" tells you nothing about product design.
• Personas based on behaviors, goals, and constraints drive decisions.
• The goal of research is to discover what users DO, not what they SAY they want.
• Five good interviews reveal 80% of usability issues.
• Jobs-to-be-Done > traditional personas for SaaS product decisions.

Jobs-to-be-Done Framework

A "job" is the progress a user is trying to make in a specific circumstance.

Job statement format: "When I [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [desired outcome]."