In practice, market analysis has particular effect on a few key areas of website design:
Site structure should take into account where users might find equivalent content in an equivalent site. For example, there is unlikely to be competitive advantage in organising content into sections that are different from every other business in your sector. Users will simply struggle to find what they need and will be less likely to focus on what you tell them when they (hopefully) get there.
Content itself can be heavily influenced by market standards. If a key competitor is delivering high-quality information on a subject seen as important in your sector, it should influence what your site contains: rather than being seen as a 'me too' you will be seen as being in-touch and responsive to the needs of your audiences.
Functionality may be heavily influenced by the market around you, particularly where you are introducing a new service that end-users may have experienced in another, possibly unrelated, area of business. Given that you will be expecting them to interact with you in a new way, and that it is probably not the main reason they have a relationship with you, it makes sense to understand what functionality they will be comfortable using. For example, it makes no sense to add a bookshop to your membership services website without a clear understanding of how Amazon and their peers are already selling books to the same people.
Language is often overlooked, but can be one of the most potent weapons in ensuring familiarity and comfort in your audiences. Adopting established naming conventions for navigation will help site users to find what they need quickly, while aligning with the language used in best practice examples from your sector can help to raise the perception of your site in the eyes of your users.
Visual language is the area where it would seem there are most benefits from being different. However, even here, there can be advantages to fitting in to some degree. Take the launch of a new venture: at times there will be strong reasons to stand out from the existing market, to deliberately challenge the perception of what an 'x' should be like. But in other circumstances, sharing visual characteristics with other 'x's' can lend credibility and stature to the offer. This is particularly relevant in government, where end users want a certain 'governmental' quality to underline the authority and integrity of the information in the site.
We integrate market analysis into the early stages of every project we undertake: we feel that it plays an essential part in establishing the strategic direction a project should take. Bypassing market analysis increases risk: there is neither a clear understanding of market context; nor a firm benchmark against which to objectively review the design approach.
Carrying out effective analysis is a relatively straightforward process. We have established market mapping and assessment techniques that provide us with meaningful design input for projects of all sizes and complexities. From basic desk research through to extensive performance benchmarking exercises, every project can benefit from the additional knowledge that market analysis provides.
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