Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Using Competitors to Do Better UX Research
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There are many ways to solve a design problem, but only so much time for testing and iteration. Fortunately, there’s a great source of alternative designs that can be reviewed, tested, debunked and borrowed from – thanks to your competitors. We’ll describe how to incorporate the designs of your rivals into research with users, drawing on case studies about everything from booking exotic vacations to planning your next movie night to piloting your sport yacht. You’ll come away with the means to break design logjams by putting your competitors to work for you.
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Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Using Competitors to Do Better UX Research
- 1. @Centralis_UX Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Using Competitors To Do Better UX Research Kathi Kaiser @kathikaiser Centralis @Centralis_UX
- 4. 1. How comparisons produce more informative research 2. Why competitors make great comparisons 3. How we’ve done it and what we’ve learned Today I’ll share: @kathikaiser
- 5. Party trick @kathikaiser What color do you see?
- 8. Party trick @kathikaiser@Centralis_UX Color, like everything we perceive, only has meaning in context.
- 9. Chicken Salad or Tuna Salad? @kathikaiser
- 10. Chicken Salad or Tuna Salad? Chicken! Tuna! @kathikaiser
- 14. Comparisons help us: • Define • Distinguish • Judge magnitude • See detail @kathikaiser
- 15. Comparisons extend the value of research by helping you learn more about your product. @kathikaiser
- 16. “…but I barely have time for research on my own product!” @kathikaiser
- 17. How Your Competitors Can Help As designers, we solve problems. Our competitors are trying to solve the same problems. Chances are, they are solving the same problem in a different way. Their solutions = our comparison set.
- 18. How Your Competitors Can Help As designers, we solve problems. Our competitors are solving the same problems…. Chances are, they are solving the same problem in a different way. Their solutions = our comparison set.
- 19. How Your Competitors Can Help As designers, we solve problems. Our competitors are solving the same problems…. Their solutions = our comparison set. …in different ways.
- 20. How Your Competitors Can Help As designers, we solve problems. Our competitors are solving the same problems…. Their solutions = our comparison set. …in different ways.
- 21. How Your Competitors Can Help Comparison set for wine openers
- 22. How Your Competitors Can Help Comparison set for online shopping
- 23. Competitors = Efficiency The Internet is a library of prototypes. @kathikaiser
- 24. Competitors = Reality Check Is the grass really greener? @kathikaiser
- 25. Competitors = Bigger Picture @kathikaiser
- 38. Case Study: Pixels Comparisons focus the conversation on design elements that matter. @kathikaiser
- 43. Case Study: Paths Comparisons help you set the standard. @kathikaiser
- 47. Case Study: Products Competitors help you see where you fit. @kathikaiser
- 48. Summary @Centralis_UX@Centralis_UX • Comparisons extend the value of research by helping you learn more about your product. • Competitors are a rich source of alternative designs • Use competitors to help you: – Choose the best elements of each design – Set the industry standard – See where you fit & identify opportunities for innovation @kathikaiser
- 49. Tips & Tricks @Centralis_UX@Centralis_UX Pixels Paths Products Choose competitors who solve your problem differently. @kathikaiser
- 50. Tips & Tricks Keep your participants blind.
- 51. Tips & Tricks Randomize the order of the things they use.
- 52. Tips & Tricks Have them do before they compare.
- 53. Tips & Tricks Focus your results on your product.
- 54. Thanks!
Editor's Notes
- Hi! We make products and services easier to use. We do that by observing and talking to users. Lots of them!
- When we talk about research, we mean actually observing and talking to real people. Sometimes it’s for discovery, other times it’s for evaluation.
- Does the first color look different to you now? Did any of you say purple first, but now you say pink? Did anyone think fuschia?
- Ok so fuchsia is right either way – the fuchsia plant has both these colors. But the point is, the way you see a color depends on its context. This is true for EVERYTHING we perceive.
- Take this sandwich, for instance – is it chicken salad or tuna salad? They looks similar. Most of use could either smell what type of sandwich it is, or take a bite and taste it. Fun fact about me, however, is that I have no sense of smell. Never have, since birth. People usually ask me, well, can you taste? And I say, sure, I guess, although I don’t know what “taste” might mean to someone who can smell. But generally, I can taste all sorts of things and actually enjoy being a bit of a foodie. My Achilles heel, however, is this sandwich. I can’t tell you by looking at it if it’s chicken salad or tuna salad, and I can’t smell it. If I take a bite, I STILL DON’T KNOW. My brain doesn’t have enough information to identify the flavor. I could eat the entire sandwich and still not know if it’s chicken or tuna BUT, there is a way I can find out, without a doubt, which it is….
- …I can take a bite of the other type of sandwich. One bite of chicken, one bite of tuna, and suddenly my brain has everything it needs, and there is no doubt in my mind which is chicken and which is tuna. Because now, my brain has something to compare it to. I can’t identify the type of sandwich in a vacuum, but I can distinguish between two different sandwiches. Because brains work better when they have context.
- So here’s David Lee. Seems like an ordinary guy. How tall do you think he is?
- Only when you see him next to Simone Biles do you realize that he is VERY VERY tall, and she is VERY VERY short. People can’t really compare in abstract, better to be done against something else, Need a frame of reference, and that frame of reference helps us judge the extent of a difference
- It’s easier for us to make judgements about one thing when we see it next to another. And not only easier, but we can say more about it – we notice more about one thing when we see it next to a different thing of the same type
- So the upshot is, comparisons: Help us define and distinguish things – they tell us the nature of what something is by comparing it to what it is not Help us judge extent or severity Help us notice more about a thing of a type
- COMPARISONS HELP YOU LEARN ABOUT *YOU* NOT JUST TO LEARN ABOUT THEM
- Perhaps you’re thinking, fine, it’s good to add comparisons to your research, but I barely get to research my own product. How am I going to design multiple prototypes, recruit even larger samples, and do even more research?
- This is where your competitors become your best friends. Design is problem solving – at the end of the day, you’re making something that addresses some problem out there for users, and hopefully makes it easier and more rewarding for them to solve the problem.
- This is where your competitors become your best friends. Design is problem solving – at the end of the day, you’re making something that addresses some problem out there for users, and hopefully makes it easier and more rewarding for them to solve the problem.
- This is where your competitors become your best friends. Design is problem solving – at the end of the day, you’re making something that addresses some problem out there for users, and hopefully makes it easier and more rewarding for them to solve the problem.
- This is where your competitors become your best friends. Design is problem solving – at the end of the day, you’re making something that addresses some problem out there for users, and hopefully makes it easier and more rewarding for them to solve the problem.
- Problem: How do you open a bottle a wine? Solutions: check out all these different products out there. If you wanted to know what was easiest, you wouldn’t have to build alternatives, you could just buy them and use them in your study.
- Another example
- All sorts of fruitful comparisons out there
- You get to see if your competitor is doing it better, or maybe where you are…
- In the real world, your product may be used in conjunction with competitors anyway, so it’s more realistic
- But how do you pick who and what to study
- Determine your research question Pick the appropriate lens to get the answer lens = how you look at the problem/question Look at your competitors through that lens Find ones that look different
- Determine your research question Pick the appropriate lens to get the answer lens = how you look at the problem/question Look at your competitors through that lens Find ones that look different
- Determine your research question Pick the appropriate lens to get the answer lens = how you look at the problem/question Look at your competitors through that lens Find ones that look different
- Determine your research question Pick the appropriate lens to get the answer lens = how you look at the problem/question Look at your competitors through that lens Find ones that look different
- Determine your research question Pick the appropriate lens to get the answer lens = how you look at the problem/question Look at your competitors through that lens Find ones that look different
- Most narrow lens- the interaction How a design problem has been solved at the point of interaction with the user. On the evaluation side Cruise line: Problem: How do we best communicate complicated itineraries?
- So what’s out there? Lots of competitors in the cruise space – even lots offering this particular type of vacation in Alaska. How do you choose?
- Info design problem = interaction lens. Choose competitors based on interesting variations in how they have solved the problem. So these are three ways that itineraries for cruisetours are illustrated by different cruise lines.
- Two of them are chronological – they follow the flow of the trip. The third does not – it uses a comparison table to show which itineraries have which features.
- Two of them rely on words to describe different stops and activities. The third is much more minimal, and relies on icons instead.
- So which of these approaches, or what combination of elements, solves the problem for the user most effectively? What we did… …we can’t share what the answers were, but we now know – should the itineraries be chronological, or should they list features? Should they spell out details in words, or use icons for a more abstract approach? Because we gave users the opportunity to encounter these and other variables, we know how they impact the user experience.
- So which of these approaches, or what combination of elements, solves the problem for the user most effectively? What we did… …we can’t share what the answers were, but we now know – should the itineraries be chronological, or should they list features? Should they spell out details in words, or use icons for a more abstract approach? Because we gave users the opportunity to encounter these and other variables, we know how they impact the user experience.
- Blu-ray discs replaced DVDs in the late 2000s as the primary means (at the time) of watching movies at home. In addition to offering a higher resolution image and sharper experience, Blu-rays also had a lot more room on them for additional content. Movie studios starting jamming these discs with all sorts of bonus features, outtakes, shorts, director’s cuts – other things they had that could increase the value prop of watching a movie on blu ray. But there was no standard way of organizing it. Our client, a major movie studio, asked us to develop a standard approach for designing the menus by seeing what we could learn from all the different ways studios were doing it. So we chose five titles that used different approaches to the organizing the context, and took them to users in usability testing.
- Again, like the cruise itinerary, these titles were deliberately chosen because of their interesting differences: Ratatouille had a ton of content, and used the full screen for the menu, while the movie played in a small window Fantastic Four used a very stylized icon for scrolling through its menu – when an item was selected, the options appeared over the movie as it played And there were other differences too…
- We set up our lab like a living room and brought people in to watch movies. We gave them scenarios that exposed them to the differences in the organizational systems of the menus. We observed what they could and could not find, and how easily. At the end, we demoed the differences and got their commentary about them.
- In this situation, we leveraged all this data about different ways to organize the content into developing a standard. Looking at your competitors helps you see through and above all those different ways to solve the problem to help you establish the *best* way to solve the problem.
- You can use research with competitors not only to optimize something you’re designing, but also to determine what you should be designing in the first place. Your competitors are trying to solve the same underlying problem for users, but they may have different offerings than you to address those problems. Discovery-focused competitive research enables you to see how those other products are used by people relative to yours, and can help you determine what new products your company should pursue.
- One of our favorite clients at Centralis asked us to help identify new product opportunities for boaters. Boats are pretty complex objects – they may contain products from dozens of different providers. To understand how our clients’ products were used, and what other products they could develop, we went where the products were used – on the boats!
- By watching how captains used these different products – ours and those of competitors – in tandem, we were able to identify the strengths and limitations of each product, and also the gaps – where is the opportunity for something new? If we had restricted ourselves to studying only our own product, we probably would have learned a lot about how to make it better, but we wouldn’t have learned how it fits within the overall system, and where the opportunity lies to better support the user’s overall goal.
- By watching how captains used these different products – ours and those of competitors – in tandem, we were able to identify the strengths and limitations of each product, and also the gaps – where is the opportunity for something new? If we had restricted ourselves to studying only our own product, we probably would have learned a lot about how to make it better, but we wouldn’t have learned how it fits within the overall system, and where the opportunity lies to better support the user’s overall goal.
- This might be the summary at the end
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- This might be the summary at the end
- This might be the summary at the end
- This might be the summary at the end