CHALLENGE

As product and marketing teams increased acquisition efforts, signup and activation remained flat.

 

By this point, we had developed a stronger understanding of who our users were, but we still lacked clarity about what they needed the app to help them accomplish. We wanted to understand why people chose Kaia, what kept them engaged, and what led them to stop using it or choose another solution.

 

PROJECT TIMELINE

March to June 2021

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MY ROLE

I defined the study goals and led the research from planning through delivery. I conducted Jobs to Be Done interviews, synthesized the findings, designed a follow-up survey, and translated the results into recommendations for product and marketing teams.

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RESEARCH METHODS

Jobs to Be Done interviews, affinity mapping, and a quantitative follow-up survey

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BACKGROUND

The team had limited insight into the progress users hoped to make through pain management and how they judged whether a solution was working for them.

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Using the Jobs to Be Done framework, I explored the functional, emotional, and social needs behind people’s decisions to try, continue using, or leave the app. The goal was to identify the outcomes users valued most and give the team stronger evidence for product planning, acquisition, and retention.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What were people living with chronic pain trying to accomplish?

• Why did those goals matter to them?

• What triggered them to seek a new solution?

• What encouraged or discouraged them from choosing Kaia?

• How did they define progress and measure success?

• Which needs were most important and least well served?

 

 

APPROACH

Understanding the decision to switch

I conducted Jobs to Be Done interviews focused on the sequence of events that led people to try Kaia.

Rather than asking only about product preferences, I explored the full decision-making journey: the first moment they considered making a change, the alternatives they had tried, what pushed them away from their existing approach, and what pulled them toward a new one.

 

The interviews also explored the emotional and social factors surrounding pain management, including the concerns, habits, and expectations that supported or prevented adoption.

Identifying the main jobs

After the interviews, I compared patterns across participants and used affinity mapping to organize their needs, motivations, and desired outcomes.

 

This analysis surfaced six main jobs people hired the product to do. I then used Jobs to Be Done models, including job maps and forces-of-progress diagrams, to examine how people pursued each job and what influenced their decision to adopt or reject the app.

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Prioritizing unmet needs

Once the main jobs and desired outcomes were defined, I designed a survey and distributed it to the broader user base.

 

The survey helped us:

• Confirm that the jobs reflected users’ experiences

• Rank the jobs by importance

• Measure satisfaction with existing ways of achieving each outcome

• Identify needs that were important but poorly served

 

I used an importance-satisfaction calculation to rank the desired outcomes and highlight the strongest areas of opportunity.

 

 

OUTCOME

The research produced six job stories that captured the functional, emotional, and social progress users wanted to make.

 

It also clarified:

• What triggered people to seek a new pain management solution

• What encouraged them to choose Kaia

• What created hesitation or resistance

• Why some users stayed while others looked for alternatives

• Which desired outcomes represented the greatest unmet needs

The findings were used in product roadmapping and helped shape marketing messages around the goals and outcomes users cared about most.

 

 

DELIVERABLES

• A research report covering signup triggers, switching behavior, and messaging considerations

• Six job stories describing the context, goal, and intended outcome behind product use

• Job maps showing the steps people took to accomplish each job

• Desired outcome statements defining how users evaluated success

• Forces-of-progress diagrams showing what encouraged or prevented adoption

• A ranked set of unmet needs to inform product planning