Design Document: Competitive/Comparative Analysis

Completing a competitive analysis is a great way to learn about what other sites are doing. It gives you an opportunity to use what works and to avoid what does not. In a competitive market, your client is sure to want to have a web site that is on par with the competition. Completing the competitive analysis will ensure the site you develop will do just that.

No Competition?
Chances are even if you are dealing with a monopoly, there will be sites out there that contain simi liar information or concepts. Make sure you check them out for good and bad ideas.

Identify Competitors

• Have your client identify for you who they feel their competitors are
• Do a search, you may find some your client is not even aware of

Evaluation Criteria
Use your sites goals as a starting point for the analysis. You can probably safely assume that the competitions web sites goals will be simi liar to that of your clients. Ask yourself if the competing site accomplishes the goals you have defined. Evaluate what the site provides and does not provide. Use the competitive analysis worksheet as a guide.

• Does the competition achieve the requirements for your site?
• Does the competitions site appeal to the same or a different target audience?
• Determine how well it achieves ease-of-use.
• What technologies and features are employed over and above static HTML pages?

Document the Results
You will need to present your findings to your client.

• Write a summary of each competitor.
• What were the pros and cons of each site?
• Illustrate each point made with a screen capture (screen print)

Determine the Impact of the Analysis
It is possible that changes may occur after the analysis is presented. Goals and audience definition may not be quite the same. Entire goals may be discarded and new ones implemented. This is acceptable. If changes are to occur, they are much more welcome at this stage than they will be later on.

This will become section 2.3 - Competitive Analysis.

If you will be keeping your clients site updated, set a schedule to revisit the competitive analysis process. Your clients site needs to evolve, the competitors certainly will!