Page 207 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

200 12 Design Methodology
Competitive product analysis, in essence, is a “comparative study” originating
from anthropology. It is a qualitative research method that studies user behavior.
Firstly, it requires finding out the similar phenomenon or things; secondly, the same
phenomena or things are grouped and tabled for comparison; thirdly, conduct
further analysis on the comparing results. Its main purpose is to provide references
on functionality, usability, key technologies for product design, to help designers to
explore the core demands of the target users, and learn how competitive products
meet the requirements of the target users.
There are three types of competitors:

• Competitors with identical functions: products that can perform the same function
with the target product, and are highly correspondent to the original needs and on
the same platform with the target product (Web, desktop, mobile terminal).
• Competitors with similar core functions: products that can perform the same or
similar function with the target product, and are highly correspondent to the
original needs and on the same platform with the target product (Web, desktop,
mobile terminal).
• Competitors with the same-essence function: competitive products that have
different realizing channels or forms but can perform the same function with the
target product. Such products are usually goods or services with reference values.

12.6.2 General Process of Competitor Analysis

Competitive product analysis includes the following process, as shown in Fig. 12.2:
(1) Competitive products collection: Collect competitive products as many as
possible through all available channels;
(2) Competitive products selection: Classify and select the core competitive
products worthy of reference from the available competitive products;
(3) Competitive products dismantling and function integration: Dismantle and
analyze the core competitive products to understand the motivation behind the
design function of competitive products. Identify the excellent design and
integrate it into their products.

Fig. 12.2 Process of competitor analysis