How many of the four methods of competitor analysis have you mastered?

In the process of making design revisions or self-driving optimization of the design experience, the first step is to do competitive product analysis. Over the years, in the process of doing competitive product analysis, we have summarized the [four methods of competitive product analysis], which can better cover the various project scenarios that we need to deal with in our work.

In addition to completing daily needs, Internet designers need to take the initiative to do some self-driven projects. Through the following four methods, the problems are sorted out and summarized into the design experience optimization pool, and then through consultation with the product manager, each experience optimization point is combined with daily needs and implemented in iterations of versions.

I think one of the meanings of UI designers is to see the APP products they are responsible for getting better and better, the visual experience, and the innovative experience.

The first step in doing a competitor analysis is to list the competitors? No!

First of all, we need to consider the purpose of the competitor analysis and the object to be optimized. Depending on the project, choose the more appropriate method

Four types are summarized:

1. Focus on the overall focus on the industry: focus on macro elements, combined with the five elements of user experience to do competitive analysis for the entire APP.
2. For the interaction process, it is more complete: analysis of competitive products in the core path of the product.
3. There are fewer pages involved: product function point research.
4. Visual level force and penetration exploration: combined with five-dimensional analysis/six-dimensional analysis method to do visual level competitive analysis.

1. Combine the five elements of user experience to analyze the competitive products of the entire APP

This is a common way for us to do competitive analysis, so I won't go into detail here. When combining the five elements of user experience to do competitive product analysis, it is divided into 6 steps, and the following points to note are:

1. Competitor selection: list several representative competitors;
2. Strategic level: product positioning and advantages, company background and marketing strategy;
3. Scope layer: function comparison, including core function comparison and differentiated function comparison;
4. Structural layer: information architecture and main function interaction process, framework layer is used to optimize the layout of page design, integrated into the structure layer and presentation layer
5. Presentation layer: visual style, e.g., color scheme, fonts, icons, lists, layouts, micro-interactions
6. Conclusion: After analysis and comparison, the optimization points of our own products are given.

Second, the core path of the product competitive product analysis

When doing competitive product analysis, you can mainly start from the user behavior path of competing products, take screenshots of the core paths of each competing product and arrange them, clearly point out the jump of the page with indicator arrows, sort out its interactive path process, and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each competing product.

If you want to use the tool, you can use it according to your preference, such as Figma, sketch and other common software. The interaction mode, jump logic, and even loading method and loading style of each competitor are worthy of our reference.

The method of the core path is simple, and it is illustrated by just two pages below:

For example, when I was doing a self-check on the core path of the iPad side of an APP I was responsible for, I found that the logic of the payment path jump was complicated, and I couldn't directly scan the code to pay.

It should be noted that while sorting out the core path for the selected 3-5 APPs, self-checking your own products should be carried out in more detail about the core path. The competitive product analysis of the core path of the product is actually based on the self-examination of the core path of its own product, and compares with other competing products to find the design optimization point of its own product.

This approach is ideal for design departments to drive projects autonomously. After discovering the problems, they are sorted out and summarized into the design experience optimization pool, and then through consultation with the product manager, each experience optimization point is combined with daily needs and implemented in iterations of versions.

The method of core path competitive product analysis can be combined with function point investigation at the same time, as follows

3. Research on product function points

This method of function point research is suitable for the situation that there are few pages and targeted local revisions. For example, the message center of a platform with tens of millions of daily active users involved no more than 5 pages in total, but there were many page statuses.

At that time, a function point survey was conducted for the message conversation page.

How it works:

By analyzing and dismantling the function points in the core path, the research products are arranged and compared, and the function points are checked and the wrong cross is not used, and the problems of their own products are analyzed and compared.

For example, when I was supporting the revision of a picture book app, I conducted a survey on the function points of the core reading path.

After investigation, it was concluded that in the picture book APP, the links such as reading, listening to picture books, and practicing Xi are complete, but the lack of basic function construction is also the reason why the product use experience is not satisfactory enough, such as although the pause and sharing functions are there, the pause icon recognition and sharing location need to be optimized. The most important thing for picture book products is the user's reading path, and the imperfection of basic functions is also one of the reasons for the poor product experience.

Fourth, combined with five-dimensional/six-dimensional analysis method to do visual level competitive analysis

Many industries have their own five-dimensional analysis methods.

We often use the "five-dimensional analysis method" in our design work, that is, the five dimensions of "shape, color, word, quality and structure" to analyze design works. After the analysis, we will make conclusions from three perspectives: "business perspective, user perspective, and design innovation".

This methodology is one of the most fundamental and fundamental methodologies!!

I remember that in 2020, I took a company to interview and practice, and the result was a child opposite, when I talked to him about rationality and sensibility, how to affect the user's emotions through design means, the other party didn't understand, and didn't let me speak. You must say what you know, otherwise the other party will really think that you don't understand.

Later, in 2022, when I found out that there would be many design friends who were very happy because they knew the basic methodology of the five-dimensional analysis method, I felt that it was really necessary to share my previous collation and summary.

The five-dimensional/six-dimensional analysis method is to list each competing product and summarize it in combination with each point of the "shape, color, character structure".

"Shape, color, word structure" is the most basic five dimensions of visual language, and now dynamic design is one of the important components of visual design, so shape, color, word, structure, quality, and movement form six dimensions, and formulate brand design specifications.

1. Shape: The graphic elements, the style and portrayal of the icon are in line with the theme of the content, and even the details such as the size of the rounded corners of the card should be consistent with the brand tone of the APP. In the process of icon portrayal, it is necessary to pay attention to details such as color ratio, design style, and visual proportion.
2. Color: Color system, main color, auxiliary color, functional color and other color ratio, in icons, fonts, decorations, buttons and other colors are extremely important, so that the interface design information transmission is faster and clearer, and reasonably guide the user's line of sight.
3. Font: Font system, combined with product brand tonality, select appropriate Chinese fonts and English fonts, form brand cultural characteristics, pay attention to font size and other specifications in the design, excellent text layout is more conducive to the user's identification of information.
4. Structure: Page layout, reasonable layout on the basis of a thorough understanding of the business, so that the interface has a sense of breathing, transparent and comfortable, in which the understanding of the user's line of sight is extremely important, which determines how we layout and define the framework.
5. Quality: Texture and style, different industries have different requirements for the overall texture of the interface, picture texture, and color texture, which need to be measured and judged according to the characteristics of the industry and the user's perspective.
6. Animation: Animation and animation, transition animation, icon animation, jump animation, loading animation, etc., can increase the user's interest when using it, and soothe the anxiety when waiting.

Taking a picture book revision project supported in 2021 as an example, the following is my analysis and conclusion using the five-dimensional analysis method:

It should be noted that each dimension should be combined with its own product to give a conclusion.

This article was originally published by @胡冰茜 on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without the permission of the author is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash and is licensed under CC0.

The views in this article only represent the author's own, everyone is a product manager, and the platform only provides information storage space services.