UX Benchmarking – forms, benefits, and potential traps
How do you know if your UX is any good?. One way to make sure is with UX benchmarking, a method of measuring the quality of user experience that your product is providing. Read on to find out what it is, how to perform it and what common pitfalls you should look out for.
Table of contents
What is UX benchmarking?
Products are benchmarked to measure the performance and utility of their design, and to compare them with the competition on the market. UX Benchmarking (or usability benchmarking) is a method of using metrics to evaluate the user experience of your product.
How to perform UX benchmarking?
Usability benchmarking supports the creative use of patterns and best practices in the product you’re developing. Here are the steps you should take:
- Choose what to measure
- Choose how to measure
- Collect measurements
- Redesign the product
- Collect more measurements
- Interpret and analyze findings
Comprehensive UX benchmarking begins by selecting the area you’d like to measure, choosing the right research methodology, and defining your metrics. The next stage is about collecting data and using them to identify the areas for improvement and designing potential solutions. After implementing the new functionalities, you interpret and analyze the measurements and, consequently, introduce further improvements.
Different types of UX benchmarking
There are lots of various types and classifications when it comes to usability benchmarking. Depending on what area you want to measure, you can choose strategic, performance, or process benchmarking, related to your organization’s operation. Here, we’ll focus on UX benchmarking from a research perspective, which has an impact on the design of new solutions.
When it comes to comparisons of both company performance or strategy and user experience, the first general division is into internal and external benchmarking. Internal benchmarking makes use of patterns which have already been applied within the organization, in other processes or projects. External benchmarking is based on analysis and comparison with existing market solutions.
One of the most common divisions in digital product development is functional and visual benchmarking. By separating such aspects, you can focus on the essential elements: isolating them in your analysis and evaluating their usefulness. At times, solutions which are interesting in terms of function turn out to be visually unattractive – without this division, such solutions would be totally excluded and could not serve as inspiration.
The common pitfalls of UX benchmarking
UX benchmarking can yield a number of benefits, but if done wrong, it can also cause problems. What traps do you need to look out for?
- Becoming overly inspired. Thanks to usability benchmarking, you can find out how other organizations have dealt with a similar problem. Transferring successful patterns is normally a good idea – after all, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. You need to know where to stop, though. When using existing solutions, make sure you know the limits – use them simply as inspiration and combine them into new solutions. This is particularly important if you’re using very original ideas.
- Following the wrong examples. When analyzing the ideas proposed by your competition and transferring them to your projects, you need to make sure they are really worthwhile. Sometimes, a seemingly accurate solution may have a completely opposite effect on your project. Try to answer this question: is this example really worth following?
- Reinventing things from scratch. In your analysis of the competition’s operations, you don’t need to obsess over thinking outside the box or creating brand new solutions, as they might be misunderstood by your users. They are accustomed to certain patterns – you need to make sure that what you offer is understandable to them and easy to apply.
Pros and cons of using existing models
There’s a fine line between being overly inspired by competition’s solutions and trying to reinvent the wheel. Before you decide to implement an existing model to your design, makes sure to weigh in on these pros and cons:
Pros
- Easy implementation. Developers like readymade solutions, as they speed up their work considerably.
- Lower cost. Faster design and implementation processes mean shorter time to performance and, consequently, lower cost.
- Users’ understanding. When users recognize a given solution, they have no difficulties with navigating and using a service or a product.
- Users’ time. Based on easy understanding, users perform subsequent tasks intuitively. They achieve their goals quickly – and that’s your goal, too, to a large extent.
Cons
- Some users may fail to notice your product. If your product doesn’t differ from what your competition offers, users are likely to let it slip past them.
- Your product is similar to others. If you only use ready solutions, your product will be just like many others available on the market.
Best practices of UX benchmarking
To apply best practices in a conscious way, your analysis must be rigorous and precise. You need to be clear on what you actually expect from UX benchmarking and what elements you wish to analyze.
How can you avoid getting lost in this information overload? Create a summary in the form of a SWOT analysis for the collected data for every organization. With this method, you’ll be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your competition’s approaches and consider possible risks and opportunities for a given solution. Remember – always adjust the analyzed solutions to the needs of your product.
UX benchmarking: a summary
In practice, design benchmarking is about adapting the analyzed solutions to your own goals, needs, and possibilities. This approach is change-oriented (in terms of evolution rather than revolution), pragmatic (all the observations, analyses, and comparisons are aimed at developing individual solutions for your project), and comprehensive.
Bibliography
https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/user-testing/5-ux-benchmarking-tips-for-designers/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjBy4nDeb_I
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/product-ux-benchmarks/
https://thestory.is/pl/proces/faza-odkrycia/benchmarking/
https://www.webusability.pl/2018/10/11/analiza-konkurencji-czesc-benchmarking/
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