CRyder Design

        In the early stages of designing an app, it is crucial to set solid groundwork to move forward from and know who you’re designing for, what already exists on the market, and what you want your product to be. There is a wide variety of tools and skills to have in your designer toolbox, and competitor analysis and user interviews should be included within them. By conducting both, a competitor analysis, and user interviews will help you take the necessary steps that take part in building the foundation of your end product.

        Competitor analysis creates a snapshot of the products that are already existing, what they do well, what they do poorly, and what they’re missing. Author, Chandan Mishra states, “An important competitive analysis best practice is to discover three things: the why, the what, and the how behind your competitor’s products” (“A Product Designer’s Guide to Competitive Analysis”). Once you formulate an answer to these questions, you should have an understanding of how to move forward, or if more research is required. But why conduct a competitor analysis, how does it help in your own product design?  Author, Steven Douglas states, “A competitor analysis allows UX designers to find out if there are any gaps in the market. For example, through your research, you may discover a feature that your competitors’ products do not have… You can use your insights to create a strategy that will generate an asset or skill that competitors do not have, but that is down to your ability, not the competitor analysis” (“How to Do a UX Competitor Analysis: A Step By Step Guide”). If you successfully discover a gap in the market, it is possible to create something to fill that gap, give your design a leg up on the competition, and gain customers from other products as well. 

       User interviews can be valuable to a designer for a vast variety of reasons depending on how the questions are formulated. In the article, “How to Conduct User Interviews” the author states, “user interviews are where a researcher asks questions of, and records responses from, users. They can be used to examine the user experience, the usability of the product or to flesh out demographic or ethnographic data (for input into user personas) among many other things.” The information collected from user interviews is extremely valuable in the design process. After all, the users are who we are designing for, and if it is possible to gain insight on how to improve a product and why you can strengthen your design to fit exactly what their needs require. 

        The first steps of the design process are just as significant, if not more, than are other steps within the process and require just as much time and effort. As a designer, when you can identify the gaps in the market and the needs of the users who you are designing for, you are able to properly strategize your next steps toward success with the design of your product.