Understand the competitive landscape

This article applies to: UserTesting 

On this page:

• About competitive testing
• Why collect feedback on competitors
• Approaches to collecting feedback
• What to avoid

About competitive testing

• The UserTesting platform enables you to obtain feedback on any experience visible to contributors, whether on a desktop, mobile device, or through a mobile camera.
• This includes experiences related to your products or services and those of your competitors.

Examples:

• Observe contributors interacting with a competitor's website or mobile app.
• Request contributors to demonstrate how they perform tasks, noting whether they use your site or a competitor's.
• Have contributors complete tasks on sites your team considers exemplary, even if they aren't direct competitors.

Why collect feedback on competitors

• Unbiased perspective: Watching users engage with competitors' offerings provides an objective view of their strengths and weaknesses compared to your own.
• Building confidence: Seeing users struggle with competitors' solutions can reinforce confidence in your products.
• Inspiration: Noting user satisfaction with a competitor's solution can motivate your team to match or surpass those features.
• Identifying competitors: User feedback can reveal unexpected competitors in your market.

Approaches to collecting feedback

• Feedback on competitor sites and apps:
  • Develop tests with screening questions to identify users who are customers of specific competitors.
  • Ask these users to perform tasks on competitor sites or apps.
• Comparison tests:
  • Utilize Balanced Comparison to have users complete tasks on both your site and a competitor’s.
  • Compare usability, design, and functionality directly.
• Exploratory research:
  • Identify critical tasks your business supports and test how users complete them elsewhere.
  • Gain insight into their preferred methods and tools.

What to avoid

• Do not collect personally identifiable information (PII).
• Ensure ethical and legal compliance in competitive research.
• Respect competitors' intellectual property rights.

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