Acting on Competitive Research


Finally, once you've collected all the data, analyzed the responses, and performed all the comparisons, you need to do something with it. To make the research usable—to create actionable intelligence—you need to refocus on your work. Take your list of advantages and hindrances and reflect them back on your product. For every item on the list, explain its relationship to your product. Every advantage that a competitor's product provides can be seen as a threat to yours, and every problem as an opportunity. Everywhere the competition's product is more effective than yours reveals a weakness in your product, and vice versa.

Then create a theory explaining the motivation behind the design choices that were made by your competition, both good and bad. Why was the product made the way it was? What were the constraints? What was the likely rationale? Which choices do you agree with? Which do you not? Which are inexplicable? Concentrate on the whys of your competitor's decision-making process, not necessarily on what was done.

Warning

Don't use your own results in your advertising. Although it's tempting to use the results of your internal competitive research in your ads, it's generally not recommended. People won't give it a lot of credence, and your competitors may decide to sue if they think your results are incorrect. If your internal research shows, for example, that four out of five people prefer your product over its competitors, and you're convinced that this is an accurate proportion of the population at large, hire an independent research agency to replicate your research. An independent agency is likely to use much more rigorous standards in their research, and their results will carry much more weight in consumers' (and judges'!) minds.

The final outcome of competitive research is a deeper understanding of what makes a good user experience, admiration for your competitors' ability to solve problems, pride in your own product, and a plan that allows you to use this knowledge to your advantage. These are all worthwhile lessons, and there are few other ways to learn them.




Observing the User Experience. A Practioner's Guide for User Research
Real-World .NET Applications
ISBN: 1558609237
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 144

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