understanding the jtbd Pyramid™
See what drives your customers, beyond function to identity and emotion.
Product teams struggle with balancing usability and purpose
When teams map customer needs, they usually focus on tasks.
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“Get it installed.”
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“Use it more efficiently.”
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“Complete the process faster.”
These are valid goals—but they all live on the surface. They reflect the journey of using a product, not the deeper purpose for buying it.
Usability ≠ Motivation.
Customers don’t buy products just to use them. They buy them to achieve something meaningful—to solve a core problem, to live into an identity, or to feel a certain way.
Here's what often gets missed: the true customer experience
What teams focus on What customers actually experience
Install the software Feel confident switching to something better
Cook dinner faster Be a more present parent at the end of the day
Track workouts with a wearable See myself as disciplined and strong
Send a polished presentation Be perceived as competent and prepared
Two problems, one root cause
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Most teams confuse the usability journey with the customer’s deeper goals.
So they stop at Product Jobs (Level 1). -
Even when teams consider the “why,”
they often reduce it to vague notions like “emotional benefits”—
missing the structured layers of purpose and identity that actually drive decision-making.
And the result? Products get built that are easy to use…but still not compelling enough to win.
Most teams solve problems. The best teams understand people.
What's needed: A full map of customer motivation
The JTBD Pyramid™ gives you exactly that. It breaks motivation into five distinct levels—from interaction to purpose to feeling—
and helps your team design for what actually drives adoption, loyalty, and love.
Scroll down to see how the five levels work—and why they matter.
What the JTBD Pyramid™ Solves
A map of human motivation - from product tasks to personal transformation
When you ask, “What job is the customer trying to get done?”—the answer might live on one of five very different levels. And that’s exactly what the JTBD Pyramid™ reveals.
It helps teams:
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See the full range of customer motivation—not just tasks or goals
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Distinguish product interaction from core purpose, identity, and emotion
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Align teams on what to build, how to position it, and what to say
What makes it different?
Most frameworks treat customer needs as a list. The Pyramid shows they’re a hierarchy.
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Not everything matters equally.
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Not every job is on the same level.
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And not every innovation should target the same place.
That’s the power of a pyramid: It reveals structure, depth, and priority—so you can design the right thing, in the right way, for the right level of human need.
A Tool for Strategy, Innovation, and Messaging
Whether you’re:
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Creating a product roadmap
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Writing a campaign
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Conducting interviews
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Or launching something new…
The Pyramid gives you a clear, visual way to say: “This is what our customer is really trying to do. This is how we can serve them better.”
Keep scrolling to see how the five levels work.
The Five Levels of the JTBD Pyramid™
From product interaction to identity and emotion, here's the full spectrum of customer motivation
The JTBD Pyramid™ reveals five distinct levels of customer need.
Each level answers a different kind of question:
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Level 1: What is the customer doing with the product?
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Level 2: What goal are they trying to achieve, independent of the product?
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Level 3: Who are they trying to be through this action?
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Level 4: How do they want to be perceived (by themselves or others)?
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Level 5: How do they want to feel in the moment?
When teams only operate at Level 1 or 2, they risk building useful products that don’t resonate.
The magic happens when you see all five levels—and learn to work across them.
Level 1: Product Jobs
Beginning with what's easiest to see
This is where most teams start—and often where they stop.
Product Jobs capture all the tasks involved in acquiring, setting up, using, maintaining, and eventually retiring a product. These are the logistical steps customers take when interacting with your solution.
They include things like:
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Unboxing and assembling the product
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Navigating a user interface
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Troubleshooting a feature
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Scheduling service or updates
These jobs are part of the buyer’s journey and usability experience—which makes them highly visible. That’s why teams gravitate here: it’s what you can observe, measure, and improve. And it matters. If a product is hard to use, none of the deeper motivations will matter.
But here’s the catch: Just because the customer is doing something doesn’t mean you’ve understood why they’re doing it. There’s always a goal behind the interaction.
And that takes us to Level 2: Core Jobs—the functional purpose that lives beyond the product.
Level 2: Core Jobs
The functional purpose behind the product
While Product Jobs are about interacting with the solution, Core Jobs are about why the customer turned to a solution in the first place.
A Core Job is the fundamental problem they’re trying to solve or the outcome they’re trying to achieve—independent of any particular product.
Examples include:
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Breathe cleaner air at home
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Relieve chronic back pain
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Get rapid imaging to guide emergency care
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Stay protected from the elements on a backpacking trip
These jobs are solution-agnostic. They’re about the result, not the tool.
Understanding Core Jobs shifts your thinking:
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You’re no longer just optimizing usability—you’re clarifying purpose.
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You’re not just improving steps—you’re aiming to solve a real human problem.
But even Core Jobs aren’t the full story. Because beneath every functional goal is a personal motivation: Who the customer is trying to be.
That’s where Level 3 begins: Role Identity Jobs.
Level 3: Role Identity Jobs
Who the customer is trying to be
By the time we reach Level 3, we’ve moved beyond what the customer is doing (Level 1) and what they’re trying to achieve (Level 2). Now we’re entering the realm of identity.
Role Identity Jobs capture the aspirational roles people are trying to live into through their behavior.
It’s no longer just about solving a problem—it’s about becoming someone.
Examples:
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Be someone who protects my family
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Be a creative, hands-on teacher
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Be a responsible steward of the environment
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Be someone who pushes personal limits
These jobs often hide in plain sight. You won’t hear them in a focus group unless you ask the right questions. But they shape behavior in powerful ways—guiding choices, forming habits, and defining brand loyalty. A customer doesn’t just want a water filter. They want to be someone who cares for their household’s health. They don’t just buy a tent—they want to be a minimalist adventurer. When you understand who someone is trying to be, you can create offerings that help them live into that identity.
And that’s not the end of the story. Because many identities aren’t just performed—they’re seen.
Which brings us to Level 4: Image Identity Jobs.
Level 4: Image Identity Jobs
How the customer wants to be perceived
Some identities are private. Others are performed for an audience—consciously or not.
Level 4 captures how customers want to be seen, regarded, or thought of—by others or by themselves. These are Image Identity Jobs: motivations rooted in perception.
Examples include:
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Be regarded as a competent professional
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Be seen as a loving parent
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See myself as self-reliant and capable
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Be perceived as stylish, informed, or creative
These jobs are about self-image and reputation. They often influence buying behavior more than we realize—especially in social, professional, or high-stakes contexts. People don’t just want tools. They want tools that affirm who they believe they are—or who they want others to believe they are. The key insight? These jobs aren’t always spoken. They show up in word choice, tone, and subtle cues. But when you uncover them, you unlock messaging, positioning, and product design that resonates on a deeper human level. And yet, beneath even this lies something more immediate:
Not what we want to do or be seen as…
but how we want to feel, moment by moment.
That brings us to Level 5: Emotional Jobs.
Level 5: Emotional Jobs
How the customer wants to feel in the moment
At the top of the Pyramid are the most fleeting—but often most powerful—motivations: Emotions. Emotional Jobs are about how someone wants to feel while interacting with your product, brand, or experience. These are the moment-to-moment emotional states that can make or break trust, delight, or connection.
Examples:
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Feel reassured and in control during a health decision
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Feel a sense of joy while using a creative tool
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Feel confident when presenting to a team
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Feel peace of mind while traveling far from home
These emotions aren’t secondary. They’re often the difference between:
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Trying a product vs. loving it
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Using a tool vs. recommending it
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Staying vs. switching
The right emotion, at the right time, can amplify a customer’s trust, identity, and loyalty. The wrong emotion can quietly erode all of the above.
The Five levels at a glance
Emotional Jobs: What a customer wants to feel in the moment (Feel reassured, feel at ease.)
Image Identity Jobs: How a customer wants to be perceived (Be regarded as responsible).
Role Identity Jobs: Who they are trying to be (I am a protector of my family)
Core Jobs: Functional, solution-agnostic goals and objectives (Ensure my home has clean air)
Product Jobs: Solution/product interactions (Unbox and install the air purifier)
why it matters
When you know what level you’re innovating for, everything gets clearer.
Most teams try to serve customer needs.
But without a structure like the JTBD Pyramid™, they end up guessing:
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Are we fixing a usability issue or solving a deeper problem?
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Are we supporting a core goal or helping someone live into an identity?
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Are we missing the emotional experience entirely?
Without clarity on what level a job lives on, teams often build the right thing for the wrong reason—or the wrong thing entirely.
Knowing the level changes your decisions
When you know a job lives at Level 1 (Product Jobs), you optimize task flow, user experience, and lifecycle touchpoints.
When you see that it’s a Level 2 job (Core Function), you shift your strategy to solve the core problem more effectively.
When the job is at Level 3 or 4 (Identity), you position your solution as a way for the customer to become someone they aspire to be—or to be seen in a certain light.
And when you uncover a Level 5 job (Emotion), you focus on the moments that spark trust, confidence, reassurance, or delight.
The Pyramid doesn’t just explain—it guides
It helps teams:
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Prioritize the right jobs based on impact and opportunity
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Uncover hidden leverage points for product, messaging, and positioning
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Avoid shallow research and build offerings with deeper resonance
Whether you're designing a feature, a campaign, or an entire business model, The JTBD Pyramid™ gives you a map of what really drives your customer. And just as importantly, it gives your whole team a shared language to move forward together.
see it in action
The Pyramid is more than a framework. It’s a tool for real decisions.
You’ve seen the five levels.
You’ve seen how they reveal the full spectrum of customer motivation.
Now the question is:
What do you do with it?
The JTBD Pyramid™ isn’t just a model to admire—it’s a practical tool for:
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Building better products
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Crafting sharper messaging
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Creating stronger innovation strategies
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Aligning your team on what really matters
And it works across industries—from software to manufacturing, healthcare to education, B2B to consumer.