Competitive User Experience Intelligence: A Primer

Post on 01-Nov-2014

1.197 views 0 download

Tags:

description

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.

Transcript of Competitive User Experience Intelligence: A Primer

Competitive UX Intelligence: A Primer

Beverly Freeman bfreeman@ebay.com | @HungryBeverly

UXPA 2013

“Nicely, please?”

Competitive UX Intelligence

Why? Methods

Frameworks

Competition = ?

Traps

Product lens

Strategy lens

Brand lens

UX lens

abstract concrete

user defined

company defined

STRATEGY

BRAND

PRODUCT

UX

How the UX lens enriches the story

Plot Characters

Types of UX competitors

[start] [end]

upstream downstream

direct

companion

analogous

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

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

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

Analogous competitor

Someone or something in a different domain that provides inspiration for or impacts people’s expectations of your product

[start] [end]

analogous

Transparency

“Do it for me”

Interaction paradigms

Engagement in unexpected places

Types of UX competitors

[start] [end]

upstream downstream

direct

companion

analogous

3 sample methods

light heavy

Usability add-ons

Mental model diagrams

Competitive benchmarking

Usability add-ons

Add tasks on competitor products to your existing studies

• Cheap and easy!

• Learn about the baggage and expectations users bring with them

• “Free prototypes” means more learning from alternative approaches

Mental model diagramming

Courtesy Vince Frantz, Sprokets

Add a competitor layer to a visualization of users’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

• Map competitor offerings to users’ mental spaces

• Highlight opportunities for integrations, partnerships, or acquisitions

Competitive benchmarking

Compare yourself to the competition in an apples-to-apples manner

• Effective wake-up call to decision makers

• Blind studies + large samples = $$$

Us vs. the competition… based on what?

Usability metrics

e.g. success rates, time on task, errors, satisfaction

The four elements of user experience

“While usability is 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

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 sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives.”

-- Simon Sinek

Starting with the wrong goal

“The real goal of competitive user experience research is to figure out how to creatively differentiate your product from the competition - not just fix other

people’s mistakes.”

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?” (Top 2 box)

Woohoo! Invest in marketing

Invest in UX

@#$%?!

Being too competitor-focused

“Companies that study their competitors in hopes of adding the features and benefits that will make their products ‘better’ are only working to entrench the company in 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.”

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/companion competitors

• Competitive UX research can be lightweight (and it can go beyond usability)

• User-focused > competitor-focused

Thank you! (and “Nicely, please?”)

bfreeman@ebay.com | @HungryBeverly