This week I’ve completed a competitive audit of the low alcohol/alcohol-free e-commerce market by selecting few of my client’s competitors and alysing the similarities and patterns between their mobile experiences. One of the main reasons for analysing these websites is to learn more about the customer base, as I cannot access the website analytics for Sobersauce. I hoped that by completing this task I’d be able to produce a set of personas that can help to justify my design decisions.
Why Complete a Competitive Audit?
I discovered competitive audits via a UX design course I was completing online, published by Google (Google, n.d.). It stated several benefits and drawbacks of competitive audits, the most relevant to my project being:
Benefits:
• Informs the design process by illuminating what should and shouldn’t be included in proof of concept
• Provides reliable evidence to justify design ideas and decisions, and offers a deeper understanding user expectations
• Saves time, money, and energy, especially if completed before the iterative design processes begin
Drawbacks:
• Can stifle creativity, causing the designer to copy what other designers are doing, rather than trying innovative ideas and methods
• Audit is biased by subjective opinions of existing designs and does not supply the same definitive data as analytics might do
• Competitor’s features may not fit the use case for Sobersauce
Competitive Audit Presentation
Below, I have included an Issuu link that can be accessed to browse my competitive audit presentation slides.
References
Google (n.d.). Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate: Week 5 – Competitive Audits. [online] Coursera. Available at: https://www.coursera.org/learn/start-ux-design-process/home/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022].
Nielsen, J. (2019). Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience (Video). [online] Nielsen Norman Group. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/videos/jakobs-law-internet-ux/.