Know the field: Competitive Analysis, Mobile-first Approach, Information Architecture, and Jobs to be Done

Written By Editors Unbuilt Labs

by Marvin Cheung, Head of Research and Strategy

Before putting pen to paper, you want to conduct a little more research. At the heart of the competitive analysis is the question “What is everybody doing?”:

  • What are the solutions being offered?

  • How are people solving the problem currently?

  • Are people happy with the current solution?

While doing a feature list of competitors’ products can be simple, successfully reverse engineering the conditions from which design decisions are made require experience. Especially if you are developing a new product with no quantitative data available, being able to guess why certain design decisions were made can be incredibly helpful. 

Here, much like with Art or Literature, you would assume that the creators of the product have made decisions deliberately and based on quality data. We recommend taking a mobile-first approach towards designing: to design for the smallest screen size first. Some of the questions you want to ask:

  • Why did they opt for a particular wording?

  • Why is the Call to Action (CTA) where it is?

  • Which group of users are they prioritizing?

  • What are the Jobs to be Done?

An information audit and an accompanying user flow will be helpful here:

  • Can you account for all of the content on the page?

  • What steps are being taken to arrive at the solution?

The readings below give a good overview of the tools available to complete this task. Google’s “Basics of UX” in particular will help make sense of this step. 

Recommending readings:

Editors Unbuilt Labs
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