How to do a UX competitor analysis: UsabilityGeek guestpost

Everything you wanted to know about how to do a UX competitor analysis but were afraid to ask

In Justinmind‘s latest guestpost for UsabilityGeek, we take a deep dive into one of the lesser-practised UX skills – the UX competitor analysis.

“The UX what?”, you might well be asking. Let’s break it down. The UX competitor analysis is a way to get a handle on the competition, grow your brand and gain otherwise hidden insights into the market. All you have to do is stay one step ahead of your competitors by studying them, analysing their products’ user experiences and applying what you learn to your own UX process.

Why should you do a UX competitor analysis?

There are a ton of benefits to carrying out a UX competitor analysis. For starters, you’ll become acquainted with new research methods and practices that you may not have been familiar with before. Any new UX research and design skills you can add to your arsenal is more than welcome, thank you.

There are more tangible benefits too. A UX competitor analysis will enable you to:

• solve your product’s usability problems by studying others
• understand the market
• hone your design process from wireframe to development hand-off
• work from data, not from hunches

Are there any downsides to doing a UX competitor analysis?

While there might not be any real downsides, there are some potential pitfalls to take into account before starting out. Make sure you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you’re doing ok just because you’re doing better than someone else, counsels James R Lucas in his book Fatal Illusions: Shedding a Dozen Unrealities That Can Keep Your Organization from Success. Keep innovating, even when you’re analysing the competition.

Another challenge to doing a UX competitor analysis well is the data. Data analysis is no walk in the park, and more so if this is your first time. It’s all too easy to get sucked into a blackhole of interesting tidbits of information, without synthesizing these into anything actionable.

How to do a UX competitor analysis

Find out everything you need to know to do you’re own UX competitor analysis over on UsabilityGeek.