Conducting a Solid UX Competitive Analysis

“Competition brings out the best in products
and the worst in people.” –  David Sarnoff

Most people are familiar with the concept of a competitive analysis; it’s a fairly standard business term to describe identifying and evaluating your competition in the marketplace. In the case of UXD, a competitive analysis is used to evaluate how a given product’s competition stacks up against usability standards and overall user experience.  A comparative analysis is a term I’ve often used to describe the review of applications or website that are not in direct competition with a product, but may have similar processes or interface elements that are worth reviewing.

http://danforth.co/pages/2014/03/01/conducting-a-solid-ux-competitive-analysis/

How to Conduct Competitive Research

Who are your closest rivals””and how do they talk about themselves, as well as your company? It’s time to find out.

Understanding the competition is a crucial business activity for any entrepreneur or business executive. Some companies hire professionals to track competitors and assess the competitive landscape on a regular basis. But it doesn’t always have to be a complicated, time-consuming, and expensive process — particularly given the new wealth of data that can be assembled using the Internet. By investing even a small amount of time, businesses of any size can develop a framework for making competitive assessments, gather intelligence on business rivals, and understand how to position their own brand, products, and company in the marketplace. Not only can you learn best practices from competitors, but you can also learn to avoid the mistakes they make.

http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/05/conducting-competitive-research.html