A thoroughly conducted exploration of your competitors’ UX can benefit you a lot. Essentially, what you will be doing, is looking at the good and popular product, and making yours better. From the data obtained, you can extract many useful insights regarding interesting features that you should add, interface particularities that users enjoy, get to know your market and customers better, and set more precise goals for your project. As with everything, it will only provide valuable results when done thoughtfully and professionally. Arounda digital agency prepared for you a full-fledged guide to the execution of UX Competitive Analysis, and this article will familiarize you with the topic and cover main theses.
Table of Contents
Definition, purposes, and benefits
Source: idego-group.com
This method allows you to define what product solutions that are implemented by your market rivals work best, improve them, if possible, and integrate them into your development – and this method calls UX Competitive Analysis https://arounda.agency/blog/the-complete-guide-to-a-ux-competitive-analysis
This will allow you to:
- enhance the performance of your product;
- gain more thorough expertise about the niche you aim for;
- have some starting points to create your design;
- understand the merits and drawbacks of other products;
- making changes to the product not blindly.
When to start & what to know
Source: directdevelopmentpr.com
Ideally, you start studying your competition at the very beginning of the development process, when your project is but a mere idea. This way, you can easily transform it accordingly with your findings. Ideally again, you never stop doing that, because even when you have a successfully launched product, your competitors do not stop growing and evolving. The market changes, users’ demands and expectations change as well, and you should keep up with the times. Like Alice in the looking glass was told–you need to run just to stay at your place. This means, just to keep your success on the market, you cannot rest on your laurels and need to grow and become better. Things to keep in mind during your research journey:
- Outline the criteria for your analysis so you will not deviate from your goals or get lost in the ocean of data. You can always add new ones or cross them off, but just having a plan will help you focus.
- Include your own product to the chart so you will see clearly its strong sides and flaws.
- Do not analyze everyone who is on the market with you. Pick a couple of the most popular services or labels: their experience is the most valuable and will not overload you with numbers and facts to process.
- Avoid the copycat strategy. Draw inspiration from the strong solutions, and make your fresh, unique, and better equipped to satisfy the users’ needs.
- Do not restrict yourself with a toolset. Use the instruments that are most effective and comfortable for you when operating with the data you found.
- Include comparative analysis as well. If your product has some definitive features look how they are implemented in another niche.
Competitive UX analysis in 6 steps
Source: uxdesign.cc
We’ve written a laconic guide for you, based on our own experience and the most effective practices that are used globally. If you want to know more about User Experience design or look at our competitive analysis UX case studies, check out Arounda website: https://arounda.agency.
Number one: determine your objectives
Form a clear picture of what you want to see at the end of your investigation, and what you are striving to accomplish with it.
Number two: location is important
Will your product be used locally or globally? When focusing on the regional market, focus on the main local competitors. If you are going to launch something that will be marketed around the world, start looking at your top global rivals.
Number three: study direct opponents
Your direct competition is doing the same thing that you want to do, so you are going to struggle for the commitment of one customer pool. Remember that you must share location, platform, and functionality, solve the same issues, and satisfy the same customers’ needs.
Number four: study indirect competition
Now, the product in question can remind yours in some qualities but very different in others. It can be another platform, another industry, or another target audience, but from similarities, you can gain valuable ideas that will contribute to your detuning from the competition.
Number five: select the specificities to compare
Whatever points you are going to analyze, they must contribute to users’ benefit. When you determine, what is valuable for your target audience, fill in a comparison matrix with your selected data.
Number six: process your information and make conclusions
The comparison matrix you’ve created will allow you to easily spot the similarities and contrasts between selected products, or even highlight more intricate and abstract things like trends, ideas, and strategies. In the end, write a list of what should be added to your product or changed in it.
Need a hand? We got you!
You do not need to spend time burying yourself in the deeps of UX, learning the patterns of user behavior, and studying the history of the most effective digital solutions. You have someone who can do this for you! Our UX experts are dedicated to bringing your product design to perfection, by all means from carrying out a UX audit to developing a strategy for its improvement on the basis of rigorous competitors analysis. When uncertain about your course of action or required a precise approach to your project, do not hesitate to contact us! We are happy to help you with solving any issues that may arise and, through your project, build a win-win relationship between you and your customers.
