If usability is the differentiating factor between the competitors, then a heuristic assessment would be useful. However, in many cases usability issues are table stakes that should be optimized apart from what the competition is doing. For a competitive analysis I suggest starting with the manner in which each competitor has chosen to solve the most valuable and complex needs of your customers.
I don%u2019t know what industry you%u2019re in, so take the kitchen sink as an example. If you look at 4 competitors in this space you might look at Kohler, Franke, Moen, and Blanco. The links to their sinks are below. Kohler: http://www.us.kohler.com/onlinecatalog/category.jsp?category=5) Franke: http://www.frankekitchensinks.com/ Moen: http://www.moen.com/ecatalog/gallery/kitchen-bar-sinks/_/N-687 Blanco: http://www.blancoamerica.com/index.html?p=KITCHEN_SINKS If you were to conduct a heuristic evaluation of these competitors, it would be very time-consuming; the results might not tell the story of what really differentiates these sites; and the site owner may still not know what needs to be done to reach parity or superiority in key areas. It would be more helpful to focus on more strategic design elements, such as: - Approach to product selection - Category-specific filters - Use of rich media - Personalization - Supporting content - Design tools - Interactive demo in a home context - Use of social media to promote awareness - Consistency with offline brand collateral To support your ratings of these strategic design elements, you could provide screen captures (e.g. using software like SnagIt) showing how customers would go from initial entry to goal attainment in the different sites. You should use a rating system, like the one in the IBM paper you referenced. But I%u2019ve found that stakeholders pay more attention to the recommendations than the assessment itself, so I always take the time to develop a perspective as to which areas should be tackled first, comparing level of effort and expense to anticipated business value. Paul Bryan Director, User Research and Design Strategy Usography Corporation (www.usography.com) Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44753 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
