Competitive audit and ideation _Course 2 Week 4 (6/7/2022)
GUXDCC Course 2 Week 4 has two objectives: Competitive Audit and Ideation. As I suggested before, Competitive Audit should be conducted before the Ideation phrase, even ahead of Value Proposition. This was verified by GUXDCC mentor’s own words at the end of the competitive audit video: “Coming up next, we’ll explore value propositions.”
Who are the competitors?
Basically, Competitive Audit is the market research for benchmarking and insights. The first step is to define who the competitors are. Previously I concluded in the Hypothesis statement that my product offers bookkeeping plus business management for home bakers who have limited experience/resources for bookkeeping and business management. It is a mix-match between accounting, bakery business management and even personal organizer. In ux-strategy it is recommended to audit related influencers too.
I started with a Google search for ‘best bookkeeping/business management app for small business’, quickly found many reviews, however, many of them are affiliate marketing content to promote their websites or products. App store rating is more genuine data to validate the true marketing position of certain apps and provides valuable customer feedback for user research too. After filtering out the affiliate reviews and less downloaded mobile apps in the same categories, here are my verdicts.
Key competitors in online accounting:
- the biggest players in the bookkeeping/accounting market, such as QuickBooks, Xero
- the niche runners for small business, such as FreshBooks, Zoho Books
Key influencers for small business:
- Project management apps such as Asana, Wrike
- Point of Sale app such as Square
- Organizer apps such as Evernote, Todoist
- Food inventory software such as BakeSmart
- Grocery Shopping List, HelloFresh: Food Recipe Box
GUXDCC competitive audit template recommends choosing 3–5 direct/indirect competitors for one comparison spreadsheet and a two-page audit report. It is a feasible workload for one person to complete in the assigned course time (one week). Without limitation on numbers or tangible objectives for the audit, this market research can turn into an endless rabbit hole. For example, I felt totally lost when starting with too many categories and influencers in the comparison spreadsheet. Then I lay down three specific audit goals to refrain myself from unnecessary research and comparison. The whole process became more efficient and productive.
Competitive audit goals:
- compare successful accounting apps and find out the decisive factors that drive users to adapt or switch to a product. SWOG
- Evaluate features and how to balance core features (bookkeeping) and auxiliary features (business management) within the boundaries of mobile app and pricing
- Find best practice for good UX design in mobile apps
Note: Competitive audits can stifle creativity if you go too specific on features. Keep in mind that the purpose of audit is to gain insight to inform design rather than just copy successful features.
Great features list for small business accounting apps, but some are not must-have for home bakeries (e.g., time tracking and mileage tracker). (techjockey.com)
The insights:
- Good UX design is one of the decisive factors of whether new users are willing to learn the app. Best practices include minimum effort for free trial and login, smooth onboarding experience, intuitive UI and concise help text (no jargon), easy and shallow navigation.
- Most competitors describe their mobile apps as the time-saving accounting and business management on-the-go; however, some successful features such as snap receipts, mileage tracker are not necessary for home bakery users.
- Essential features for single entry bookkeeping are enough for home bakery business: invoice, expense, financial report of profit and loss, sales report by items.
- Unique business management features to solve the specific problems of beginner home bakers is the value proposition to create a niche in the market. This should be promoted in the branding of the app. Don’t market it as a ‘fit-for-all’ accounting app for small business as other competitors did.
- For home bakeries who are sensitive to cost and time, the price of the bookkeeping app should be minimal or even free, therefore the app has to be light and value for money.
- Provide automation as much as possible in tasks, for example pre-filled text, saved history, favorites, tags and search.
- Don’t overload users with long lists of filling fields but allow matured users to customize templates for their branding and marketing.
- Allow future expansion in features to meet the increasing needs of growing business.
- For Accessibility, at least multiple language options should be provided, additionally some obstacles, such as Impaired Vision and Target Accuracy during baking, could be overcome by assistive technologies.
Preparing for ideation
After the competitive audit, I have a much better understanding of how and why successful mobile apps provide accounting plus certain business management solutions to their targeted users, and the difference between their target users and mine. I already came up with some ideas during the Define phase and expected to further develop and evaluate those ideas during the Ideation phase. But no, Ideation is not settling on one idea but the process of generating a broad set of ideas on a given topic, with no attempt to judge or evaluate them. Ideation for Everyday Design Challenges (nngroup.com)
Just recap some ideas inspired by the disruptive innovation in my hypothesis statement:
- Accessible technology: simple and free mobile app
- Innovative business model: non-consumers of bookkeeping/account apps
- Coherent value network: an ecosystem includes home bakers, suppliers, customers
The competitive audit taught me that a successful product should have some ‘sticky’ features to meet the specific needs of their target users, such as mileage tracker for freelancers or contractors who travel a lot for work. Hence my product should have unique bakery-specific features besides the common features provided by other accounting apps.
Basic bookkeeping/business management features:
- Financial reports — profit and lost, sales by items
- Basic bookkeeping — receive order, produce invoice and expense tracker
- Client connection — send quote, place order and create invoice, online payment
- Vendor connection — receive promotion and automated restocking
Unique bakery features:
Inspired by home bakery bloggers who made a business of selling their formula of pricing, various baker’s planners, inventory list etc., here are the potential features to meet those needs in the market:
- Pricing — correctly price goods based on the cost of ingredient (expense) and labor (time), plus adjustable profit margin (discount)
- Recipe — automated recipe for pricing, quote, invoice and inventory
- Inventory- stocking list and automated ingredient purchasing
- To-do-list — automated purchasing list, baking schedule, order tracker
Brainstorm design ideas
GUXDCC introduces two brainstorming methods aiming for divergence and quantity.
“How might we” (HMW) is a design thinking activity used to translate problems into opportunities for design.
Crazy 8 is a mini design sprint to create 8 solution sketches in 8 minutes.
All these methods are great to generate creative ideas but not helpful in terms of evaluation. Since I am the only UX designer for this project and there is no cross-functional team for converging and evaluating those ideas, I adapted a more traditional method to explore logic solutions for a specific problem. It is the Five Whys.
Five Whys is an iterative interrogative technique pioneered at Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1930s to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a specific problem. By working back, the cause of one effect to another up to five times, designers can expose root causes and explore effective solutions. What are 5 Whys? | Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) (interaction-design.org)
Using 5 whys, one of the root causes of my targeted users not doing bookkeeping is that no guided template to help them complete the bookkeeping tasks.
Evaluating the Outcomes of an Ideation Session
Ideally at the end of an Ideation session, the cross-functional team will discuss the documented ideas and decide which to move forward with by using affinity diagrams to cluster ideas, then having each proposed design criticized and voted by the group. In my case, I had to make a personal judgment of my own ideas. Some aspects of the evaluation — is it technically possible to build? Is it financially beneficial for the business- are almost impossible to gauge at this stage.
Cluster ideas after ideation session
Unlike the waterfall, the iterative design, UX designers don’t need to settle on one idea after Ideation. Moreover, more ideas are coming out when new information is received. A full documentation of evolving ideas increases the chance of finding the best ‘combo’. Even if there are conflicting ideas, there is Parallel design — prototype the top three ideas (or combinations of several ideas) to test and discover which is the best concept. All 3 methods — iterative, parallel, and competitive — work for the same reason: Instead of being limited to your one best idea, you try a range of designs and see which ones actually work with your customers in user testing. Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability (nngroup.com)
Recognize business needs during design ideation
GUXDCC talks about recognizing business needs during design ideation. Because branding has a big effect on how users experience a product, we need to pay attention to the business’s voice, tone. More examples can be found in this article The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice (nngroup.com)
Lessons learned in Week 4:
- Be realistic and specific with competitive audit
- Ideation with specific problem to solve in mind
- Iteration when receiving more information and coming up with new ideas
- Don’t be afraid to take a break then come back :)
