Transcripts
1. Class Intro: Competitive analysis
is the necessary part of a product designed because it gives
valuable insights into your design decisions. And it gives valuable insights about the gaps in the market and about what competition is doing in the same
niche that you are in. Deed gives you the
opportunity to explore strengths and weaknesses
of your competition. It gives you the
opportunity to spot any gaps in the market
and see what is the best product fit for your product in this
particular niche market. A designer, Alex
here and welcome to this Skillshare class
when we were going to talk about
competitor analysis, what it is and what
can you do with it. I'm a digital products
creator and so far I have created or 500 digital
design products. I'm also a course creator
and so far I have created over 30 different
courses all about UI, UX design, Adobe XD, and social media design. In this class we are going
to talk about what is competitive analysis
and what are the main types of
competitive analysis. We're going to talk about how
to do a complete analysis, how to do future analysis, and also which tools to use
for competitive analysis. Finally, we're
going to talk about some best practices when
doing appetitive analysis and what are some areas and
pitfalls you are going to try to avoid window and
competitive analysis. Your Skillshare class
for this project is to do a competitive
analysis of your own. There is a dedicated
video in this class, so make sure to take
a look at it to understand how to do
your class project. Competitive analysis is
really important part of the UX design process. And it usually comes
at the very beginning of this process because
that way you're going to understand what your competition is doing
so that you can shape your products or services much better to be more
competitive on the market. Look forward to see you in
class and let's get started.
2. What is a competitive analysis: Competitive analysis is
the necessary part of design process
because it helps you analyze and understand
your competition, see what they are doing
and how your product or your business takes stacks
up against that competition. It's really valuable to
do competitor analysis, especially at the beginning
of the design process. Because you can clearly
understand what are your goals, what are your targets, and what is your
competition doing, which is same or different than what you are
planning of doing. You can do a competitive
analysis regardless of your client's website or do they have a
website or not. But it's always
recommended to start at the very beginning of
the design process with the competitor analysis so that you can understand what are your main goals and what are your main targets on
this particular project? By doing competitive analysis, you can understand
the strengths and weaknesses of your
competition and you can understand where
should you aim as a designer and which
problems should you solve? You can also understand
if there is a gap in the market and can your product
or service fill that gap? By doing this
competitive analysis, you can understand advantages and disadvantages
of your product. Perhaps your offer is not compelling enough In
your competitors are offering something which is more compelling at a better
price, for example. And the key thing for us
designers is to understand, do you actually need
to apply any kind of design changes to this
particular design just for the sake of it? Or does your competition
actually requires it of you to apply
those changes? What I mean by that is, don't just design for
the sake of design. Design for the sake
of being better than your competition at
a particular task or at a particular goal. Finally, a competitive
analysis helps you solve usability issues because you can compare your competitors, see what they are doing. And C is your product
usable enough for your users in various
different screen sizes, for example, desktop,
tablet, or mobile. Does your product scale
well on all of these sizes, does it display well, does it pass required to test, for example, for optimization, do the images load fast
if you have animations, how fast those
animations are running, you can do all of
these things at the very beginning of
your design process, just to understand
how your product or design stacks up against
your competition. In the next video, we're
going to talk about different types of
competitor analysis. So I'll see you there.
3. Types of competitive analysis: There are two main types
of competitive analysis. And depending where you
are in your design process and where is your client
in their business. You are going to do
one or the other. You're either going
to do complete analysis where you're
going to take few of the main competitors and
few of the site competitors and simply compare
their entire solutions. Now these can be
either websites or mobile apps or digital design
products, for example. And you are going to compare every single aspect of
all of those competitors. And then you're going to come up with a solution depending of what are the goals of
your particular project. You can also do a
future analysis. And what this means
is, for example, you can analyze the
menu on our website. You can analyze the search
functionality of a website. You can analyze the scrolling
thing on the app and you can basically do
a feature which is required of your design
process and analyze that feature across
your competition and see how they stack up. At the beginning,
you have to outline your goals and
define your product. You have to be specific
about what are the goals for your particular product or for your particular service. And you have to define it
and understand what is your target audience and who
are you trying to compete? Next, you have to
compile the list of direct and
indirect competitors. Direct competitors are the
competitors who are in the same exact niche that
you are or your client is, or indirect competitors are dissimilar niche to your niche, then you have to
compile the list of them and understand,
for example, for the complete analysis
every single thing, what they are doing,
as I mentioned. But of course this doesn't mean that you are
going to analyze, let's say 200 different pages, but rather main pages on their website and on their
core offering pages. You can understand
what exactly do they offer and what you
can learn from them. For your particular business, you have to have clear
goal goals in mind. So for example, if your goal is to sell more than you have to approach this analysis
by simply debt part. You have to understand how they are selling their products. So you can pick up a
thing or two about your particular website and
your particular process. This doesn't mean that
you are going to copy them whereby word or
section by section, but simply understand
how they do it, why they are doing it, and what can you
learn from them? Because this is the learning
process and this is why it happens at the very beginning
of your design process. One of the key things
right here is to identify the
differentiating factors between the products. What this means is, for example, if your clients and all of your clients competition
are selling cars, for example, let's say what is different between
all of those cards? Is it the price, is the seating layout? Is it the engines? Is the environmental impact. What differentiates
those competitors against your product and how your product can be
different or better in some cases than
your competition. You have to then understand, is that good enough goal? And is that good enough to put on a website as
the main feature, for example, as the
key selling point, you have to understand
all of these things as you approach
competitor analysis, basically what you are
offering and is it better or at lower cost
than your competition? And how can you package that for the user to better understand it and hopefully to
purchase more if that is your key objective. In the next video, I'm
going to show you how to do a complete analysis. And I'm going to show you
just a few steps that you can take and how can you approach
the complete analysis. So I'll see you there.
4. How to do a complete analysis: In this video, I'm going
to show you how to do a complete analysis of your competition and how
can you approach it? Of course, we are not going
to go into too many details, but I just want
you to understand the very essence in
the very basics of it as to how can you approach when doing
this with your clients. So let's get started. So here we have two
websites which are basically selling
the same product, which is the car in
this particular case. And I went ahead and chosen
my two local website. So if you see a Serbian
here and there, I don't pay attention to it. I just tried to
convert it to English. But the whole point here
is to understand how I approached this when
I work with my clients. So I tried to compare
two brands with really similar
prices and with real similar offers because
let's say that my client is in the very same price bracket
as these two brands. It's positioned on the same
market as these two brands. And they are offering
basically the same, let us say palliate of
products as these two brands. So how can we
position our website against this competition
just to see what they are doing and what
we can learn if we do a complete analysis
of their websites. So starting here at the top, we have the menu and we
have the menu again. But here we have a more user-friendly approach because it not just
gives us the icon, but it also gives us the search. So if I click Search, I can quickly search
for a model and then press Okay or go to close, which is really good
user interface. Then we have the logo
right here on the right, while on this website, we just have the menu in
a click to open the menu, we have all of these options, but we don't have the search. And I know for a fact that Qia offers many
different vehicles. They have new vehicles, they have used vehicles. So good search function is
really necessary right here, but as you can see, it
really does not exist. Next up we have this huge
banner image right here, because this is the new product they are offering
here at Citroen. But here at Qia, we just have this massive
hero section slider. And we don't have any
options right here. We cannot do anything. We just have this massive
slider with these two arrows. If I had myself
from screen just so that you can see when
you scroll down, information is actually here. So when I click right here, you can see that we
have information, we have buttons, they work on
hover, Everything is great, but if you are right here, you basically don't know
what to do and that's really bad user
experience in my opinion. Then here we have this
new S3 aircrafts, which is this vehicle because
it says it right here. So once again, it's really
clear what they are offering. We have this button with nicer hover effect
in my opinion, then this hover we just
underlines the text. In this hover is
much easier to see, much pleasing, much more
pleasing to the eye. And it just works a lot better
than this hover for CLEA. If we scroll a bit down, then we have our range. So I can click right here
and this actually slides. So this is one downside
because if I scroll down, yes, I can see this pagination and I can click on it and
this information goes. But if I click on this slide, there is no button right here. So that's one big downside of
this because this is one of their most expensive
models and you're going to expect that it's going
to work just fine, but it doesn't
work in this case. Also, there are no
arrows right here. If I click right here,
it's going to take me to this particular
page which I don't want, I just want to
slide between them, but there are no
arrows and KIA does that much better in this case. Perhaps combination of both
of these for our products, it would be much better
than combination of these two when you actually
put them together. In my opinion, Then if you
scroll a bit more down, there is a range. We have passenger vehicles and we can actually collapse this. And we have commercial
vehicles, which is great. We have business vehicles. And it's going to show me these basically
commercial vehicles but are a bit smaller
for businesses. Let's say that if you
want to buy in bulk, you can with these cars, but let's stick to passenger
vehicles at this case. Here we have just
these two and I know for a fact that they
are a lot more, but how can I access them? Because this is S3, S3, whereas the C14, whereas the s5, whereas the C1, there are no options for me to
click left or right. For example, while
on key a website, if I scroll down, there is no section like this. If I try to enlarge this
and try to scroll down, you can see that there is no section like that
on QIAT website. So let me actually stick this right here and
let me try to enlarge it like so that we stick to
what I showed you previously. So if I scroll a bit down, this is a big, big tick
box for me, for cetra. And in this case, because They are showing you their
models straightaway. While here we just see these models which
are shown right here. And I know for a fact that this vehicle, which is Electric, is not on sale at the moment in my local
marketing Serbia. So why would you put it right
here if I cannot buy it? So if I click right there, it's just going to give me
all of these great reviews. It's going to give me all of these articles about this car, but what's the point
when I cannot buy it? Well, on citrulline website, they're being really
honest in this case. So all of these vehicles that
you see on their website, you can actually go
ahead and buy today, which is the great
thing in my opinion, on this particular website
below that we have advisor. We can learn more
about this advisor. We have selling places, which is once again fantastic because I can know
where my local dealers, whereas the service network, what is the operating business
hours and stuff like that. Then we have some sort
of a blog right here, all the latest news we
have the newsletter, and finally we have some footer option and
social media information. Finally, this stays
sticky at all times. So price lists and
configure so I can straight away go and configure
my new or used vehicle. We have price lists, which is fantastic because I just wanted to see a
price at a glance. That's always great. And finally, we have our
services and our range. And we have this which takes
us back to back to top. While if we compare
a debt with the Kia, if I scroll here as I said, find our representative,
there is no option like on Citron website to see
them straight away. I have to click
on External page. We have the driving test, which basically
means test drive, but Google didn't
translate it to well, in this case, I can
book a test drive, which is great and I cannot
do that right here on Citron website,
prices and catalogs. But all of these I have
to click and go outside, which you still have to
do with Citroen as well. But it at least in their case, you can see those debt
information at all times. Finally, we have a footer, which is big footer, not like in Citron case. So let me move myself again
just so you can see it. Here we have services and range while here we
have new vehicles, used vehicles who
accompanies for owners innovation about KIA. We are hiring a little loss
and all of these tanks. So depending on what you like and which
approach you like, you're going to go
for one or the other. But in my honest opinion, just between these two, I would rather
combine information for our fictional client
in this particular case. So I would use information from Citron
website and I would use QIAT website design
in this case to approach a bit of a combination of all of that information, I will definitely
put a search right here on the QIAT
website, definitely. And it would move
this information up. I would shrink this image a bit more like it is
on this website. Because even on bigger pages, even bigger sizes like
in this particular case, you can see how much off empty space and wasted
space there is right here. I get it. Why they're doing this, but in my honest opinion, you don't really
have to do this. You can simply approach
it like Citron is doing. Simply give your users
the option to go to external pages and learn more about certain
products, for example. But in this particular case, I really would like the combination between
these two websites. In the next video,
I'm going to show you a feature comparison. And how can you approach the
feature comparison using this example which I just showed you for both
of these websites, because it's much
easier to stick to these websites.
I'll see you there.
5. How to do a feature analysis: In this video, we
are going to do a feature analysis
and we're going to use the same two examples which are just show you
in a previous video, but rather than focusing on the entire website and all the pages and responsiveness
and stuff like that. We're just going to focus
on a single feature and see how these two brands are
doing that single feature, which is the car configurator
option on their website. So let's get started. Here we have those two websites which I showed you previously. And as I said in this video, we are going to focus
on a single feature, which is the configuration
of your car. It's really important
and in majority of these cases you
want to get the car to your exact specification
that can either be the color or the wheels or the
interior trim or let's say, I don't know, information
package inside. So perhaps you want to
have that bigger screen. Maybe you want to have the safety warranty to be longer or anything
that you want, that's where the car
configurator comes in handy. Here I am on these different
pages and in my opinion, key or does things not just better in this particular
case, but Miles better? What I mean by that is Citron is just much simpler option then
Qia to purchase right away. Because if you want to
purchase this Citron model, let's say S3, in this case, you're just going
to come right here, select your option and get it. It's that simple. While with CLEA, it's this entire process which gives it this sort of
more refined look. Once again, both of them are
good if you buy in bulk, perhaps Citron is much
better option for you because you can
simply browse through, analyze the price,
competitive price, see with other models which
one works for you better. Understand these
packages and then simply go with your purchase
while with key. Or you can indulge
yourself a bit more into all of these fine details. First things first,
these are the pages, dedicated pages for these
two specific models. Here we can see vehicles, new S3, and here we
can see dystonic. So these are two pages for
those particular models. First things first,
Sutra and page is not all that
responsive because you can see I can scroll through
here and here we have four different steps in
the purchasing process for a stack is basically
to determine which model and which pack of options
you want to choose for. Next one is to book
your test drive. Next one is to leave the information and next
one is the conformation, which is the last
one, I should say, the number four in
this particular case. And they have the option to
compare models right here. They have the
option for filters. So I can use five doors, I can use three doors, which is the gearbox, which is the fuel
type is diesel, petrol, and levels of pigment. And you can basically click on that filter and apply
those different changes. And once again, I translated these websites from my
local market to English. So you guys can better understand
here we have exterior, here we have interior and
here we have target screen, which if I click right there, just going to enlarge it basically and put
it to full screen. And below that we have
these different angles. So these are basically PNG images in this
particular case. And you're going to
notice that we don't have the option to choose
different colors, for example. So that's where the step
number two comes in handy. Later. We have the field pack
and you can see in debt, options are changing
when I click right there and we
have the shine pack. Once again, it's
going to change, basically just
adding a few crumbs, details here and there. Same thing with the interior. You can see how that looks like in the field
back you're going to get the bigger infotainment
screen in the shine pack, you're going to get a bit
more options here and there. Then when you click
on the interior, you have the 360 degrees. But just for the interior, you can click and drag
to understand how the interior looks like
and that's basically it. So really simple. Once again, same like the homepage in the previous video
that we compared. That's basically it. You have your price straightaway to here. So Citron is a bit more honest, Let's say it like that. What they are offering you, what they're showing
you then KIA is. But this page is
really super simple. So once again, it's
not too Everybody's taste while if we take a look at gears
example right here, straightaway, bigger
imagery, nicer design, more options there,
trying to sell you this seven-year
key warranty, which Citron does not
mentioned anywhere, which kind of warranty you
actually have right here. Maybe if I click Read more, it's going to give
me these options, but I cannot apply any one of these options
directly to here. While with Kia, you
have this nice imagery. You can click on all of these images and you have
the information right below. You can understand what
all of these things are. So when I click right
here, full of content, pathogen compartment, so it gives you the answer
straightaway. Then we have dystonic and
we have dystonic GT lines. So you can clearly
see the difference between the bumpers, do wheels. The combination of
colors right here and you can launch 360 degree view. You can see how it looks like, but I want to launch it
for the regular model. I can stop it at any point
and I can click and drag and basically compare for myself at any given angle what I like, what I don't like, and maybe this is not
the option for me. Finally, we have the test drive so you can book it
straightaway from here. While you cannot do that
on the Citron website, you have to go through all of these different steps
and you have the catalog so you can understand the
options for your car. You can understand these are just the colors
they are offering here, but perhaps you want
a custom color. Maybe that is an option in their catalog so you
can click right there. Maybe they are offering
you additional options, additional services, longer
warranty, things like those. So that's why the catalog
is really useful. Finally, we have the colors, so these are the
predetermined combination, and you can see when
I click on them, they are changing in real-time, which is fantastic
because you can compare and see
which ones you like, which ones you don't like. And perhaps I can
even click right here to simply choose
the colors which are not two tone
because majority of these are two tone like
this one for example, maybe I'm just more simpler
or conservative wire. Maybe I want to click
right here to understand that and see how it looks like N. Finally,
when you're done, you can launch 360 in-depth particular color to see how
it looks like from all sides, which I think is fantastic. One downside is when I
launch the view and go to, let's say, this angle and then click to apply
this different color. It's going to bring
it back to here, and it's not all that advanced, let's say, to stick to that particular view and to
this particular color scheme. But it really doesn't matter. You can always launch it
and it's always going to scroll like this and you can do it yourself if you want to. Then below that, we
have characteristics. They're showing us
which options do you get straight out of the box, which options are, let's
say additional options. You have chosen this one
and you can see the color. But it did an update the color. That's one downside perhaps because I didn't chose this one. I actually chose this gray one. So why it didn't update here? Perhaps that is an option to
be explored a bit further. You can change your
vehicle right here. So if you don't want dystonic, maybe you want some
other car from Kia. You can do it right there. Finally, you can book a
test drive right here. So this is the second step
that cetra inputs right here. They're putting it
all on the same page, which is much easier
to understand and and the clients see what's
required of you. I have to put my name, surname, phone number so I can
understand what it is. And here I have to price, which I have four
Citron right here, but I have the price right here. What I like more
about Citron is it shows us these different pricing options
straightaway to here. So prices always available
to you while with Kia, you have to scroll
all the way down. Let's see, this is 15249. Maybe if I choose this
more expensive option, is it going to change that? No, this is just a banner image. So perhaps maybe they should update that more
shopping options. So they have some special
offers used vehicles. So all of this is great, but I'm so how prefer the openness of Citron
website right here. So perhaps for our website, imaginary website, maybe the combination of the two
would work much better. So let's say design, imagery, customization options and all of these things perhaps
might work better. For example, while
openness, transparency, ease of use may be, should work with Citron example. But It's not up to
me to tell anything because we don't really have goals in this
particular video, I'm just showing you examples. When you do this with
your real clients, you have to understand
their goals and also you have to
understand their budgets. Because developing a solution like KIA in this
particular case, can take a lot longer, can be a lot more expensive
than a solution like this. And depending of how much money can be made for your clients, may be Citron option is better option than
Kia option while I'm saying is perhaps with just this static imagery
like gears doing right here, you can do a lot
better than what Citron is doing by
default right here. So just pay attention
to details like those. See what they're offering and write down all of these options, all the solutions, what
each of them is offering, write it down to
understand and to compare. Go through a lot of your different competitors
just to understand what they are doing better or worse than you and what you can
learn from them. In the next video, we are
going to talk about tools. Which tools can you use? Soap. I'll see you there.
6. Which tools to use: In this video, we
are going to talk about tools you can use for competitive analysis
and which tools are better than the other? And finally, at the
end of the day, which tools are better for you? So let's get started. Here we have the image and these are the images
which I took online. And I just wanted to
actually show you that it doesn't really matter
which tools you are using. What matters is that
they do a job for you. Because if you're
using, for example, Adobe XD in your
work all the time, it doesn't make sense
that you switch to other tools because Adobe XD
can do the job just as well, if not better than all
of these other tools. Same story goes if
you're using Photoshop, if you're using Word, if you're using Google products, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that
you are able to do the comparison for all of
these different products. So you can see in
this particular case, they are using Adobe Illustrator to do competitive analysis. If we switch to other case, they're using Google Sheets. In this case. Here they're using Google slides for a bit
better representation. Here there are using whiteboard, so you can even do that. You can do with sticky papers, you can do it with white board, you can do it with
white pieces of paper. You can print as you can see that they've
done right here. You can print all of these website pages and you can understand what they are doing, but you can also take screenshots and bringing
them to Adobe XD. And you can do all
of this in Adobe XD. If you're using XD, it doesn't really
make sense for you to go and get an
expensive whiteboard, expensive marketers to
print all these papers, to get a printer if
you don't have it, when all of that can
be done in Adobe XD or in the tool that you are
already using for your work. Finally, here we have the
tool called extensive, and you can do most of the things which
are just mentioned, but sometimes even a bit
more because they're doing all these templates
which you can create yourself at
the end of the day, when you start working
with these clients, you can repeat these templates in any kind of tool
that you're using, bud, for example, in this case, you can simply plunk links
to your competitors. You can put the
information right here. They're giving you
these templates. As I mentioned, it's
a bit easier to do in a tool like this when you
are on that short timeline, but it doesn't have to be. You can do it in any kind of tool or software
which you are using. So as I mentioned, it doesn't really matter
what you are using as long as you're
using it correctly, as long as you're using it, and as long as it does the job. In the next video,
we're going to talk about the things to look out for common
mistakes in pitfalls. So I'll see you there.
7. Things to look out for: In this video, we're
going to talk about things to look out
for when you are doing your competitor
analysis and some of the best practices as to how can you approach this competitor analysis
when you are doing it? And the first thing is, don't just do things
for the sake of design. Think about the goals. Think about what your
client actually offers. What is their core offering? And do they try to be different
than the competition, or do they try to beat the competition in
terms of prices? Do they try to beat
the competition in terms of the volume of sales? What is the goal right here, and what is the problem that you actually trying to solve? Don't spend months of your design process trying
to put beautiful images like a show you one of the previous videos
with the car examples. Don't just do that for
the sake of doing that. Do that if that's necessary, if that is the key goal
and if that is trying to solve the main problem that your client actually faces, next step is don't do the things just for the
sake of doing things. What I mean by this is if
you want to be different, try to be different with what you are offering and how are you packaging it just to
differentiate yourself from your competition and
present your offer in a much better
and compelling way. Rather than trying to redefine
search in how the search looks like or positioning
the Menu icon instead of, let's say the right-hand
side to the left-hand side, just in terms to be different. Don't try to do that. Don't try to reinvent the
hot water because you're just spending valuable time on the things that don't matter. And under things which
are not going to yield value to your client
and to their customers. Try to follow some
examples and some rules which are already set by the industry in which
your client is in, especially if they are
in a particular niche, try to understand what
Nietzsche is doing and why they're doing it and
try to do it yourself, just in your way. Once again, don't try to copy
what they are doing because it's not going to work for
your offer and your product. Try to be different, but try to be compelling
in what you are doing. Key takeaway here is do
the things with a purpose. Don't try to do things just
for the sake of doing things. Do things with a purpose
which is going to make a change to your clients
and to your clients. Clients at the end of the day.
8. Class Project: Your class project
for this class is to create a competitive
analysis of your own. You can choose to do
a complete analysis or just a feature analysis. It's really all up to you. You can choose, for example, two or three of your
favorite brands and just compare them, write them down,
creates some sort of a screenshot in a tool
which you are using. I always recommend Adobe XD because that's what I'm using. But it doesn't
really matter as you saw in one of the
previous videos, any kind of tool will do
just as long as you do it, make sure to save it as a JPEG image and upload
it to a class project because I would
really love to see what you guys are
going to create.
9. Conclusion: There we go. We reach
the end of this class. I really hope you
enjoyed it and I really hope you got
some value out of it. Just remember a few key
takeaways right here. Always do competitive analysis, especially at the beginning
of your project because that way you're going to
understand your goals. Sometimes you're going
to reshape your goals in order to fit your
niche a bit better. And you're going to get more, better design solutions
at the end of the day, you are going to make a better design and
design decisions and usability decisions if you do a competitor analysis rather
than if you don't do it, don't do things for the
sake of doing things. Rather, do things if they are going to improve your goals. If they're going to bring you
a lot closer to your goals, then if you're doing
something else, always make sure to
copy your competition, but just copy their ideas
rather than layout, rather than colors,
rather than styles. And try to put all
of those things in your own personal style
because that is the style that your clients are going
to relate the most and their customers are going to appreciate the most
because you are, you, you are not everybody else. If you're just trying to fit in this niche where
everybody else is. Thanks so much for
watching this class. Makes sure to check
out my other classes all about your UX design, Adobe XD and more. Thank you so much for watching. And until next time, take care.
Aleksandar Cucukovic, Improving lives, one pixel at a time.
