Analyzing your competition can be quite informative and motivating. Brands compare themselves based on strategies, market share, and feature sets, but what about the user experience? This presentation discusses the unique characteristics of competitive analysis from a UX perspective, ways to think about “the competition” beyond the obvious, and methods for competitive analysis. As a bonus, it also includes frameworks for going beyond basic usability comparisons, and common pitfalls to avoid.

1. Competitive UX Intelligence: A Primer
Beverly Freeman
bfreeman@ebay.com | @HungryBeverly
UXPA 2013

2. “Nicely, please?”

3. Competitive UX Intelligence
Why? Methods
Frameworks
Competition = ?
Traps

5. Product lens

6. Strategy lens

7. Brand lens

8. UX lens
abstract concrete
user defined
company defined
STRATEGY
BRAND
PRODUCT
UX

9. How the UX lens enriches the story
PlotCharacters

10. Types of UX competitors
[start] [end]
upstream downstream
direct
companion
analogous

11. Upstream competitor
Someone or something that makes people choose not to use
your product because of what they have to deal with
before using your product
[start] [end]
upstream

17. Downstream competitor
Someone or something that makes people choose not to use
your product because of what they have to deal with
after using your product
[start] [end]
downstream

21. Companion competitor
Someone or something that makes people choose not to use
your product because of what they have to deal with
while using your product
[start] [end]
companion

25. Analogous competitor
Someone or something in a different domain that provides
inspiration for or impacts people’s expectations of your product
[start] [end]
analogous

26. Transparency

27. “Do it for me”

28. Interaction
paradigms

29. Engagement in
unexpected places

30. Types of UX competitors
[start] [end]
upstream downstream
direct
companion
analogous

31. 3 sample methods
light heavy
Usability
add-ons
Mental model
diagrams
Competitive
benchmarking

32. Usability add-ons
Add tasks on competitor
products to your existing
studies
• Cheap and easy!
• Learn about the baggage and
expectationsusers bring with
them
• “Free prototypes” means more
learning from alternative
approaches

33. Mental model diagramming
Courtesy Vince Frantz, Sprokets
Add a competitor layer to a visualization of users’ thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors
• Map competitorofferings to users’ mental spaces
• Highlight opportunitiesfor integrations,partnerships, or acquisitions

34. Competitive benchmarking
Compare yourself to the
competition in an apples-to-
apples manner
• Effective wake-up call to decision
makers
• Blind studies + large samples = $$$

35. Us vs. the competition…
based on what?

36. Usability metrics
e.g. successrates,
time on task, errors,
satisfaction

37. The four elements of user experience
“While usabilityis an important
aspect of product design, it is
certainly not the most critical
when it comes to driving business
success. There are many products
that have good usability,but do
not enjoy success in the
marketplace.”
-- Frank Guo

38. The Golden Circle
“People don't buy what you do;
they buy why you do it.
When a company clearly
communicates their WHY, what
they believe,and we believe what
they believe,then we will
sometimesgo to extraordinary
lengths to include those products
or brands in our lives.”
-- Simon Sinek

41. Starting with the wrong goal
“The real goal of competitive user
experience research is to figure out how
to creatively differentiateyour product
from the competition - not just fix other
people’smistakes.”

42. Not isolating the impact of the UX
Competitor A Competitor B Competitor C Competitor D
Pre-to-post lift
Initial perception
“How likely are you to use [product] in the future?”
(Top2 box)
Woohoo! Invest in
marketing
Invest in
UX
@#$%?!

43. Being too competitor-focused
“Companies that study their competitorsin
hopes of adding the features and benefits that
will make their products ‘better’ are only working
to entrench the companyin WHAT it does.
Companies with a clear sense of WHY tend to
ignore their competition, whereas those with a
fuzzy sense of WHY are obsessed with what
others are doing.”

44. In summary…
• Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum
• The UX lens reveals interesting “competitors”
• You may find an ally in your competitor’s
upstream/downstream/companioncompetitors
• Competitive UX research can be lightweight (and it can go
beyond usability)
• User-focused > competitor-focused

45. Thank you!
(and “Nicely, please?”)
bfreeman@ebay.com | @HungryBeverly