UX Design

Competitive Audit

Competitive Audit:

The competitive audit is an overview of your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. We know it’s important to come up with many ideas before deciding on one solution. A competitive audit is just one tool to explore ideas for designs. So we can learn from others about what has worked and what has not worked.

 

What can you learn from a competitive audit?

 competitive audit includes identifying your key competitors

  • reviewing the products that your competitors offer
  • understanding how your competitors position themselves in the market
  • examining what your competition does well and what they could do better
  • considering how your competitors talk about themselves



Direct competitors:

 Direct competitors have offerings meaning products, services, or features similar to your product, focusing on the same audience. You’re both trying to solve the same problem.

 

Indirect competitors:

Indirect competitors are more nuanced. They either have a similar set of offerings but focus on a different audience than you. They have a different set of offerings and focus on the same audience.

 

EX: for example, let’s say you’re creating a weight loss app that focuses on people in their 30s.

Your direct competitors are other companies that also make weight loss apps targeted at people in their 30s.

Your indirect competitors are any company that makes health or wellness apps targeted at people in their 30s or makes weight loss apps targeted at people in a different age bracket.

 

Competitive audits are important for a few key reasons:

  • They help inform your design process and how your competitors approach designing their products. Knowing what others have done can help you make better design decisions for your product.
  • Help you solve usability problems. Is your competitor’s website difficult to use? If so, you know what to avoid for your website.
  • It can reveal gaps in the market in user needs your competitors need to meet. Your product can address these user needs.
  • Provide reliable evidence. Why is it important to gather evidence that design ideas are most successful when there’s a deep understanding of business needs and market gaps? 
  • It can help you save time, money, and energy.

Few limitations for competitive audits:

  • Competitive audits can stifle creativity. Spending too much time focusing on what others are doing might prevent you from creating a truly innovative product. Innovation doesn’t happen by copying the competition. The key is to understand what the competition is doing and use that as a starting point to push forward and innovate
  • The success of the competitive audit depends on how well you interpret the findings. Analyzing data can be tricky, and it’s a skill you’ll develop throughout your career as a designer. Working on a team can be helpful here as you’ll have others to interpret the data with.
  • Not all designs work in all use cases. The features that work well for a competitor might not work well for your product if you serve different users. For example, imagine you’re designing a website for a clothing company. A competitor has a feature that shows photos of customers wearing their brand’s clothing on social media. But if your audience doesn’t regularly use social media, this feature is not a good fit for your clothing website.
  • Do competitive audits regularly, not just once. Stay on top of what your competitors are doing, and keep an eye out for new competitors that might emerge.

 

 How to conduct a competitive audit:

1.Outline the goals:  For your competitive audit, make sure your goals are specific. It can help break down your goals into the product features you want to compare. EX: imagine you’re reviewing three competing e-commerce websites. Your overall goal is to compare the features of the shopping experience on each site. 

If we broke that goal down, to be more specific. There are a few features you might focus on: Comparing customer reviews and ratings, return policy details, delivery, and in-store pickup options.

Imagine you are reviewing two subscription-based music streaming platforms. In this case, your competitive audit might focus on features like pricing options, browse and search functions and creating and sharing playlists.

Your specific goals will differ based on the kinds of companies you review. These two examples are just a small fraction of the purposes your audit might include.

2. Create a spreadsheet with a list of your competitors. You should include five to ten competitors in your list. Some of the competitors should be direct, and others should be indirect.

Including direct and indirect competitors in your audit gives a better picture of the full competitive landscape.

3. Call out the specific features you want to compare. This list of features should align with your goals. The names of your competitors are listed on the left side of the spreadsheet. The terms of the features you want to compare are listed at the top.

4. Research. Visit each competitor’s website or app and take notes about their features. Remember to include details like what works well, what could be improved, and whether your competitor’s features meet the needs of your specific audience. It’s also helpful to take lots of screenshots and link them to the spreadsheet. These will be important to have for your report and presentation.

5. Analyze your findings. Try to spot trends and themes. Ask yourself,  what are the similarities between you and your competitors? Is there a certain feature that your competitors all approach similarly?

6. Summarize your findings in a report. Your report might be a slide presentation or a document. It’s helpful to include screenshots and simple charts or graphics.

Check out my behnace or my portfolio for examples.