Learn more about user stories

You’ve already learned about empathy maps and personas and how they can help you
empathize with the users you’re designing for. Another helpful way to understand your users
is to build a user story around their experiences with your product. As a reminder, a user story
is a fictional one-sentence story told from the persona’s point of view to inspire and inform
design decisions. This is a great opportunity to use your imagination as you create the stories
that capture the needs of your users.

User stories should be written in the following format:

A template of a statement framing the WHO, WHAT, and WHY: As a type of user (WHO), I want
to action (WHAT), so that benefit (WHY).

As a type of user (who), I want to action (what) so that benefit (why).

Using this format is a clear way to ensure your user story is communicating everything you
need to know about the persona. The user stories you create will be very valuable as you start
designing your product. User stories can also serve as a “checklist” to make sure you’re
addressing and solving the key problems your users might face when engaging with your
product. 

The best practice for user stories is to keep them short, impactful, and to the point, with a
clear action and benefit.

Practice using this format to create user stories related to the dog walker app you've been
learning about.

As a frequent traveler, I want to hire a consistent dog walker so that I can feel comfortable
about the safety of my pets while I'm on vacation.

As a dog owner, I want to trust my dog walker so I can hire them for regular dog walks.
As a busy executive, I want to trust that dog walkers won't stand me up so I can work worry-
free.

As an indecisive student, I want to try many walkers so I can pick one for regular walks.

As a mother of two, I want to limit the amount of access to my home so I can keep my family
safe.

As a former police officer, I want to track my dog walker so I am comfortable with the safety of
my pets.

As a widowed executive, I want to find a permanent dog walker so my pets get the care they
deserve.

Keeping these user stories in mind can inform the designs you’ll create. For example, in the
dog walker app, users should have the ability to request a date and time for a dog walker,
select a specific dog walker, and maybe even read the background checks of dog walkers, since
those were all mentioned in our user stories.

Different users have different needs, so be sure to practice empathy and keep their unique
needs in mind when writing user stories. To help you write the most effective user stories,
check out this article from Interaction Design Foundation about how to write user stories.

Representing your users

Personas and user stories represent the needs of the users you’re designing for. The more
detailed and accurate your personas and user stories are, the better you will be at designing
products that meet their needs. Take your time when creating user stories. Remember, as a UX
designer, the user always comes first in all of your work, so it's important to understand their
points of view.
Activity Exemplar: Create user journey maps for the CoffeeHouse project

Here are examples of completed user journey maps for the user personas of the CoffeeHouse
app, Anika and Ali. There's also an explanation of how the examples fulfill the expectations of
the activity.  
In the examples above, the user journey maps meet the following criteria:

 All of the actions along the user’s journey are defined.

 2-3 tasks are captured for each action.

 The user's feelings are indicated at each point in their journey. 

 Improvement opportunities are identified for each step of the user's journey.

 The user journey maps consider accessibility and explore ways to reduce the impact of
designer bias.

Now compare the exemplars above to your completed user journey maps. Assess what you’ve
done using each of the criteria used to evaluate the exemplar. Do your user journey maps
meet each of the criteria above?

If you answered "yes," then well done! If not, reread the instructions and amend your user
journey maps with these criteria in mind.

Consider accessibility during user research

Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with
disabilities. Designing for accessibility is about considering all users’ journeys, keeping their
permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities in mind. By researching how people with
disabilities interact with products like yours, you can better understand how to design for
them. It’s not possible to accurately guess all the ways that a user might experience your
product, which is one reason why including people with disabilities in your research is so
important. 

Here are a few considerations for you to take into account when conducting research during
the empathize phase of the design process.
ranging from Permanent (one arm), Temporary (arm injury), and Situational (new parent)

Touch: How would you design for users who have use of one arm, either permanently,
temporarily, or situationally?

 Decide where to place buttons within your design based on several different hand
sizes.

 Create a feature that allows double taps to avoid accidental icon clicks.

 Enable the one-handed keyboard feature and general keyboard compatibility.

 Allow button customization for easy access to information that the user finds most
important.

Ranging from Permanent (blind), Temporary (wears glasses), to Situational (distracted driver)

See: How would you design for users who have limited vision, either permanently, temporarily,
or situationally?

 Use a larger font to create a reader-friendly design of the app.

 Ensure the app and the images have alternate text that can be read by a screen reader.

 Detect whether the user is operating a motor vehicle.

 Design the app with high contrast colors.

  Don’t rely on text color to explain navigation or next steps. For example, don’t use red
text alone as an indicator of a warning. Instead, your design should include explicit
instructions.

Customizable text

There are some additional web accessibility tools that individuals with dyslexia or other visual
processing disabilities may benefit from. One of these ways is customizable text, a feature that
allows users to change how text is displayed in order to read the text more easily.  Text
customization involves changing everything from the color or font to the size or even the
spacing of the text. For example, some fonts may be easier to read than others for users to
read, so customizing fonts could be a great help. Therefore, customizable text allows more
options than simply magnifying the text or zooming in, making the content more adaptable yet
maintaining the functionality.

Ranging from permanent (deaf), temporary (ear infection) to situational (bartender)

Hear: How would you design for users who have limited hearing, either permanently,
temporarily, or situationally? 

 Don’t rely solely on sounds to provide app updates, like a new message notification.
Instead, enable haptics, which are vibrations that engage a user’s sense of touch, and
notification lights.

 Apply closed captioning to all videos. 

 Provide a text messaging system within the app to allow users to communicate
through writing.
Ranging from permanent (nonverbal), temporary (laryngitis), to situational (non-native
speaker)

Speak: How would you design for users who cannot speak, either permanently, temporarily, or
situationally? 

 Provide written intros, descriptions, and instructions for users, in addition to video-
based content.

 Provide Real-Time Texting during phone calls with users or with app support.

 Arrange alternatives for automated systems that rely on speech recognition.

 Provide an in-app messaging system that allows the use of emojis and image uploads.

This list is just a small fraction of the considerations you should take into account when
designing for users with disabilities. The best way to learn about how to improve your designs
is to conduct research and get feedback from people with disabilities directly.

Assistive technologies

Creating a product design that takes every range of ability into account can be incredibly
difficult. Thankfully, there are services and apps designed to help bridge the gap. For example,
one service that’s recently been added by phone providers is Real-Time Texting, which lets
users text during a phone call to improve communication. 

Another feature that helps people with disabilities is alternative text. People who have low
vision or are blind often rely on screen readers to read the content on their screens aloud. But,
if your informational icons don’t have labels or alternative text, the screen reader can’t
describe the functionality of that button to the user. Not every image or icon is informational,
so only include descriptions when necessary. 

Researching and learning about assistive technology will help you better understand the
impact these technologies have. Here are a few links to help you get started: 

 Discussing the value of disability technology: Disability Technology from TEDx Talks on
YouTube

 How accessibility in technology changes lives: How the Blind Use Technology to See
The World from TEDx Talks on YouTube
  An explanatory guide for phone accessibility: Smartphone accessibility: a
comprehensive guide from Uswitch 

 Google’s accessibility information hub homepage 

Putting inclusive design into practice

To put inclusive design into practice, it’s important to immerse yourself in the assistive
technology that people with disabilities might use and to have conversations with them about
their experiences. The best way to design empathetically for the world around you is to engage
with your users and ask them questions about the way your designs could help them succeed.

To learn more about inclusive design, here are some additional resources to get you started:

 Describing ways to design products inclusively: Inclusive Design: 12 Ways to Design for
Everyone from Shopify 

 Google’s accessible approach to inclusive design: An Accessible Process for inclusive

Design from Google I/O

 Breaking down important inclusive design principles: 6 Principles for Inclusive Design
from UX Planet
Define problem statements
Identifying the problems that users face is one of the most important parts of UX design. But
as critical as research is to the UX design process, some of your work will still require a small
amount of “mind reading” about the user’s experience. That might seem like it’s contradicting
the rule of never making assumptions, but sometimes users just won’t feel comfortable or
know how to express exactly what their problem is and how it affects them. In this reading,
you’ll learn how to define unspoken pain points and use them to form strong problem
statements.

The connection between pain points and problem statements

As a reminder, pain points are any UX issue or friction that frustrates the user and blocks them
from getting what they need. Minimizing pain points keeps users happy and encourages them
to keep interacting with the product. So, how do UX designers find and define pain points? 

Think about the dog walker app and one of our user personas, Arnold. Arnold is in his late
fifties, and his kids have encouraged him to upgrade to a smartphone. Arnold is a leader at his
company, and not used to admitting he's uncomfortable with technology. After his wife died,
Arnold became the primary caregiver of the family's animals. But, he works over sixty hours
per week, and is unable to take his three dogs on twice-daily walks. Arnold is turning to the
dog walker app for help. 

Underneath graphic, text reads: Arnold Jones. Age: 58. Education: PhD. Hometown: Boston,
Massachusetts. Family: Widowed, four adult kids. Occupation: Pharmaceutical executive.

You learned earlier that there are four categories pain points can fall into: 

 Financial, or money-related pain points. 

 Product, which are pain points related to quality issues. 

 Process, which are pain points related to the user’s journey. 

 Support, which are pain points related to getting help from customer service.

Identifying the pain points your user is experiencing will help you find potential problems that
your design can solve. Arnold’s pain points fall into the process category. His biggest challenge
is that he's not technologically savvy, so he struggles to understand how to use the app.
Now that you’ve identified Arnold’s pain points, you need to be sure you know enough about
his needs to write a problem statement. Problem statements provide a clear description of the
user’s need that should be addressed. To build a problem statement, you can utilize the 5 Ws
framework.

The 5 Ws and H: who, what, when, where, why, and how

The most common framework used to create problem statements is the 5 Ws and H
framework. After you define the user’s pain points, you can answer who, what, when, where,
why, and how to solve the user’s problem.

Who is experiencing the problem? Knowing your users and their background is key to creating
successful solutions for them.

What are the pain points you’re trying to solve? Determining a user’s pain points early allows
you to answer the rest of these questions and clarify the context of the pain points.

Where is the user when they’re using the product? A user’s physical context matters to your
design.

When does the problem occur? Maybe it’s right after the end of a long and tedious process, or
maybe it’s something that happens daily. Knowing when the problem occurs can help you
better empathize with the user’s feelings. 

Why is the problem important? Knowing how this problem affects your user’s experience and
life will help to clarify the potential consequences.

How are users reaching their goals by using the product? Understanding how users reach their
goals allows you to map the user journey that they take through your product.

To design a solution that fits the needs of your users, you have to understand the problem
from their point of view. Thinking through the 5 Ws and how forces you to write out who the
user is and describe the full context of the problem from the user’s perspective.

Okay, back to the dog walker app! You know a bit about Arnold already, but use the skills
you’ve learned so far to confirm you know enough to solve his pain points. 

 Who: A busy executive

 What: Arnold wants to hire a daily dog walker for his three dogs.

 Where: Arnold is likely using the app at work, on the go. 

  When: Arnold gets frustrated when he opens the app, starting from the very beginning
of the user journey. 

 Why: Arnold doesn’t have a lot of experience with phone apps or similar technology. 

 How: Arnold wants to go easily from the home screen of the app to the list of dog
walkers to the confirmation screen. 

Ta-da! You were able to successfully answer all six questions. Now that you’ve thought through
your user’s needs, you’re ready to define the final problem statement. 

The problem statement formula 

So, how do you create a problem statement? Start by defining who the user is and what their
needs and motivations are. Here’s the formula we introduced in the video: 

[user name] is a/an [user characteristics] who needs [user need] because [insight]

Okay, now apply the formula to Arnold. Arnold is a busy professional who needs a dog walker.
But what’s the insight? His phone! His kids gave him a shiny, new smartphone. Arnold shared
that he often struggles with technology and is having an issue navigating the app. 

Arnold is a/an busy excutive who needs an easy app experience to hire a dog walker because
he's not technologically savvy.
Arnold is a busy executive who needs an easy app experience to hire a dog walker because he's
not technologically savvy.

The impact of problem statements 

Problem statements provide clarity about your users’ goals and help UX designers identify
constraints that prevent users from meeting those goals. Problem statements also help your
team measure success. If you expect that Arnold and users like him will engage the most with
your app, you should make the app clear and easy for them to understand. 

The designs you create matter! Empathize with your user as much as you can to make a
product that they’ll want to interact with and use every day.

Define hypothesis statements

You’ve spent a lot of time learning about the users you're designing for, and how empathy and
user research can improve your understanding of users' needs. As a reminder, here's where
you're at in the design process:

 Empathizing with users allows you to consider the product experience from the
users’ perspective. By connecting with people directly, like through interviews, you can
discover and understand users' likes, dislikes, and pain points. 

 Then, sort through research you collected about users to define the problem they're
facing. Creating a problem statement helps you clearly define the user pain points that
your future designs can address.

Now, you can begin coming up with solutions that address those problems! You’re ready to
create hypothesis statements. A hypothesis statement is an educated guess about what you
think the solution to a design problem might be. You know the challenges users are facing, so
it’s time to consider how your designs can alleviate their pain points.

Hypothesis statements don’t have a single standard formula to follow, but there are two
common methods you can try using to write one.

First, you can use the if / then format to come up with a hypothesis statement. Here are
examples of if/then hypothesis statements applied to the users of the dog walker app:

 If Arnold downloads the dog walker app, then they can utilize the “simplified” mode
setting to view only the basic app functions. 

 If Tobias signs up for the dog walker app, then they will quickly and easily pick a walker
that fits their schedule.

Second, you can use the we believe format to come up with a hypothesis statement. Here are
examples of we believe hypothesis statements applied to the dog walker app:
  We believe that a simplified mode of the dog walker app for Arnold will allow them to
hire dog walkers efficiently.

 We believe that easy access to available dog walkers for Tobias will increase the
amount of walks they choose for their pets.

If / then statements focus directly on the needs of users. On the other hand, we believe
statements take the perspective of your team into account, while remaining empathetic to the
needs of users.

You might encounter situations where you have multiple hypothesis statements for one
problem statement. That’s okay! There will always be multiple solutions for the problems that
users are facing. Your job as a UX designer is to use your creativity and problem-solving skills to
decide which solutions work best for the unique users you’re designing for.

Hypothesis statements help you narrow down your research insights into goals for your
product, so you can stay focused on the wants and needs of your users. 
Determine a value proposition
Have you ever encountered a product or app and thought, “I have to have this!”? That’s not a
coincidence! This is the dream for UX designers because we want to create products that
provide a clear value for users. 

So, how can you use everything you’ve built so far — empathy maps, personas, user stories,
problem statements, and hypothesis statements — to make users think, “I have to have
this!”? 

Start by defining your product’s value propositions. Value propositions summarize why a
consumer should use a product or service.

Value proposition example

Check out a product you might recognize - Gmail – and ask yourself if you can identify a few of
its value propositions. When Google debuted Gmail in 2004, they were entering an already
crowded market of free email services. Gmail offered: 

 The ability to send and receive emails for free

 Email sorting, archiving, and starring functions

 Spam filtering for inboxes

 Email conversation views

 1 gigabyte of cloud storage

Two of the items on that list were unique offerings that no other email services provided at the
time: email conversation views, which put individual emails in the context of a larger thread,
and an entire gigabyte of storage, which was 1,000 times the amount of storage that
competitors offered. Those were Gmail’s unique value propositions. 

Build value propositions

Everything that your product has to offer might seem obvious to you, but you have to put
yourself in the mind of your users. Users don’t know your product or understand its value yet.
That’s where value propositions come in. 

To start, you need to do some research in order to answer these two questions:

 What does your product do? Clearly explain the offering that your product provides
users. 

 Why should the user care? Describe how your product addresses users’ pain points.

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can follow a series of steps to focus in on your
product’s unique value proposition. Let’s use the dog walker app as an example to explore
how this works in action.
Step 1. Describe your product’s features and benefits. Create a list of all the great features
and benefits of your product, big and small. Don’t hold back; list everything that comes to
mind and then narrow it down later.

a wall covered in sticky notes of various features. Easy-to-use app design, geo-tracking of
walkers, complimentary doorbell cameras, thorough training for walkers, no hidden fees, quick
matching with qualified users, calendar blocking, monthly organic goodies and new products
for your pets, monthly subscription, background checks, convenient lockers for your house
keys, late-notice cancellation fees, rating system, professional referral only, rate negotiation,
upgrade dog walkers to dog nanny for set scheduled walks, picture requests from your walker,
exclusively for dog walking

Step 2. Explain the value of the product. Anything that you identify as a value proposition
needs to be beneficial to your users. In this example, for the dog walker app, there were four
categories of product values that were identified during user interviews: accessible,
professional experience of the dog walkers, cost, and reliability. The giant list of features and
benefits from step one is sorted into those four categories.
There were a few features and benefits from the original list that didn't fit into these four
categories and didn't add real “value” for the users: 

 Monthly organic goodies and new products for your pets

 Exclusively for dog walking (no other kinds of pets)

 Rating system for walkers

 Training tips

These features and benefits were not sorted into the four categories and were instead set to
the side.

Step 3. Connect these features and benefits with the needs of your users. The goal is to
identify what’s truly valuable to the user and not just a cool feature that users didn’t ask for.
To determine value, take the personas you’ve developed and pair each persona with a value
proposition that meets their biggest pain point.
A wall with different people's pictures and a sticky note underneath. Tobias: Thorough training
for walkers. Darlene: Late-notice cancellation fees. Carlos: Upgrade to dog nanny for set,
scheduled walks. Daniela: Convenient lockers for your house keys. Jessica: Geo-tracking of
walkers Arnold: Easy to use app design Makayla: Calendar blocking

Step 4. Review your official value proposition list. You’ve narrowed your list down of lots of
benefits and features by matching them with actual user needs. Now it’s time to review the list
of value propositions your product offers. For the dog walker app, here are the value
propositions that matched with the personas that were developed earlier:

 Thorough training for walkers

 Upgrade dog walkers to dog nanny for set, scheduled walks

 Geo-tracking of walkers 

 Calendar booking

 Late-notice cancellation fees

 Convenient lockers that hold your house keys 

 Easy-to-use app design 

And there you have it, your list of value propositions! However, some of these features and
benefits are also offered by your competitors. So how do you know what makes your product
stand out from the competition? Identify your app’s unique value proposition. This means
reviewing the list of value propositions that match to your personas and removing those that
your competition also offers.

One way to check out your product’s competitors is to read reviews. Sort the reviews from
lowest to highest, and closely examine what reviewers are sharing about your
competition. Here are some reviews about a competitor dog walking app:
Can you identify the biggest pain point in this example? A common theme in some of the
reviews is the need for thorough, in-person training for the dog walkers, to ensure that the dog
walkers know how to do their jobs well. Some of the reviews also call out the need for dog
walkers to be reliable. No other dog walking app is meeting this need, so that’s the unique
value proposition our app can provide!

Key takeaways

One of the most important things to know about value propositions is that they need to be
short, clear, and to the point. Users want to be able to easily identify exactly how your product
will meet their unique needs and what sets your product apart in the market. Sometimes users
won’t know what they need until you explain it to them. That’s the real heart of product
design innovation.

Learn more about design ideation

You’ve empathized with your users and determined their pain points. Now you’re ready to
start thinking of ways to solve your user’s problems. Ideating is an exciting step in your journey
as a UX designer! 

As a reminder, design ideation is the process of generating a broad set of ideas on a given
topic without judging or evaluating them. When you start thinking of ideas, you want to come
up with as many as possible. The aim is to generate lots of ideas, even ones that may seem
ridiculous at first. Sometimes your most outrageous idea will turn into a great and unique
solution!

Preparing for ideation

Before you start design ideation, you’ll need to do a bit of prep work.

Empathize with your user. Empathizing is the first step in the design process. You need to
know who you’re solving for and what their needs are. You empathized with your user already
by creating empathy maps, personas, user stories, and user journey maps. 

Define the problem. Defining is the second step in the design process. The problem you’re
trying to solve should be well-defined, so that everyone on your team can think of ideas to
solve the same problem. Knowing exactly what problem you need to solve will also keep your
users’ needs top-of-mind.

Establish a creative environment. You’ll need a comfortable space where everyone on your
team can get together and present their ideas. If you’re meeting in person, choose an ideation
space that’s different from your usual workspace. If you’re ideating virtually, try to find a
different space in your home that’s free of clutter and distractions.

Set a time limit. There are an endless number of possible products and features you could
design, so give yourself plenty of time to come up with ideas. However, you can’t brainstorm
forever, so you’ll also need to set a time to stop brainstorming and start thinking more deeply
about the ideas you’ve come up with.
Assemble a diverse team. You’re trying to come up with as many different ideas as possible.
An inclusive team of people, with different races, genders, abilities, and backgrounds, will help
you come up with all kinds of solutions.

Think outside the box. Don’t limit yourself to traditional ideas and solutions. If you have a cool
idea that seems a little different, write it down! Think big and get creative while ideating. 

There’s no right or wrong way to practice design ideation. There are many techniques you can
use to come up with ideas. If you want to learn more, check out this article from
CareerFoundry, A Guide To The Most Important Ideation Techniques, which highlights some
common design ideation techniques. Once you start ideating for your own projects, you may
even come up with your own version of one of these techniques!

The importance of design ideation

While design ideation can take a significant amount of time, it's also a lot of fun! You’ll
generate many possible solutions, and you’ll end up using one, or a few, of your original ideas.
This is perfectly normal in the UX design process, and it’s an exciting part of the working with a
team. Narrowing down many ideas to a couple of great ones is very rewarding.

Design ideation encourages you to come up with solutions that are unique. Don’t settle for
your first solution. In fact, the first few solutions you suggest are often the least creative
because they’re the most obvious. When generating ideas, you should use your creative
powers to their full potential.

Following the design process outlined in this certificate program will lay the foundation for
your product’s design. The more effort you put into empathizing with your users, defining the
problems they’re facing, and coming up with ideas for solutions, the better your end result will
be. 

Learn more about competitive audits

Competitive audits are one of the many valuable steps you can take during the ideation
process. A competitive audit is an overview of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
Analyzing the brands and products of competitors, or the companies who offer similar
products as you do, can give you a well-rounded foundation of knowledge about the market
your product will enter. That knowledge will carry into your designs and help you create a
product that’s helpful and unique for users. As a UX designer, you’ll likely partner with folks
from other teams, like marketing or product management, to run a competitive audit. 

Your competition falls into two categories: direct and indirect. Direct competitors are
companies that have offerings similar to your product and focus on the same audience.
Indirect competitors can have a similar set of offerings and a different audience, or a different
set of offerings with the same audience. Examining both of these competitors can offer
insights about the path your designs might take and the users that you’re designing for. 

Why are competitive audits important?

Consider how much work your direct and indirect competitors have already done to design
and market their products to users. They’ve already had an impact on the industry that your
product will enter. Studying these companies, their designs, and their user feedback is a
fantastic source of information. 

Competitive audits can offer many benefits throughout your ideation phase, including:

 Giving you an idea of products already in the market and their designs. 

 Suggesting ideas to solve early problems that you’re facing with your own designs. 

 Revealing the ways that current products in the market are not meeting users’ needs.
This is a gap for your product to address!

 Demonstrating the expected life cycle of a product in the same market as yours.

 Informing all the different iterations your product could take and how those
performed for your competitors. 

With these benefits in mind, you can work with your team to identify the features and
qualifications that you think are vital to your product. You'll focus your audit on the parts of
your own design that you want to learn the most about, like the user flow through your app or
the navigation within the app. A little self-reflection about the designs you're working on will
set up your audit for success from the start.

You’re ready to begin!

By investing time into competitive audits, your team will be able to learn from the mistakes of
your competitors and can avoid making those mistakes yourselves. Think of audits as a tool to
help you create something for your users that’s completely different from the competition,
combining all of the strengths of your competitors’ offerings into one fantastic product!

Steps to conduct a competitive audit

You’ve already learned that conducting research on competitors is the cornerstone to
understanding your product, the landscape of your industry, and your users. Completing a
competitive audit is an effective way to compile all of your research into one central resource.
In this reading, we’ll break down each step of the competitive audit process in more detail
through an example to introduce you to the process. In a later activity, you’ll conduct your
own competitive audit.

For the example in this reading, imagine you’re conducting competitive research on fast-food
burger restaurants for your new client, Burger Garden. Burger Garden feels that their current
website isn’t attracting much business, and they want you to help the company redesign their
website. 

To follow along with the example in this reading, you can use this link: 

To see the completed exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use
Template.” 
Link to exemplar: competitor audit spreadsheet.

OR 

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the exemplar directly from the
attachment below.

Google UX Design Certificate - Competitor audit - Food trucks [example] XLSX File

Download file

Step 1. Outline the audit goals 

As a UX designer, you know that the ideation process is most effective after you’ve completed
an audit on your new client, Burger Garden, and their competitors. But before you move into
the details of the audit, you have to define your goals. Since this project is for a website
redesign, the goal of the competitive audit is to compare the user experience of each
competitor’s website.

Using consistent language for rating competitor products can also create more uniform
feedback and help you “grade” competitors. You can grade competitors on a scale of:

Needs work: The app is not usable, and users aren’t getting what they need from this aspect of
the app.

Okay: This aspect has some issues, but with some work, it could meet user needs.

Good: This aspect works well, but doesn’t always provide users with the necessary information
easily.

Outstanding: This aspect feels consistent, and it meets or exceeds the user’s needs. 

Step 2. List competitors 

Start to build the competitor audit using the template. First, ask the company or team who
they consider to be their direct and indirect competitors. As a reminder, direct competitors
have offerings that are similar to your product and focus on the same audience. Indirect
competitors either have a similar set of offerings but focus on a different audience, or they
have a different set of offerings and focus on the same audience. Getting this information early
can provide good insight into where the company really fits into their industry.

For example, Burger Garden mentioned that Beef Eaters restaurant is one of their direct
competitors, so they should be included on the list. Based on your own research, you find two
more direct competitors that are also burger restaurants in the same geographical area as
Burger Garden, called Burger Nest and The Spotty Cow. You also come across an indirect
competitor, The Vegan Cow, that has an international presence and really appealing imagery
on their website. The competitor audit spreadsheet now includes the information shown
below.

Step 3. Determine the specific competitor aspects you want to compare

Defining a list of aspects you want to compare makes it easier to compile your results for
analysis later on in the process. For this example, imagine that you check out each of the
competitors’ websites and rate them based on the following categories:  

 First impressions: Check out the website on both desktop and mobile devices, and
make note of your first impressions. Is the website responsive, meaning that it resizes
across devices? Does the design complement the product? How do you feel about the
website?

 Interaction: Explore the user flow and navigation of the website. What features are
available for users? Is the website accessible to all users, including those using screen
readers? How inclusive is their website to non-English speakers? Will the user get
confused as they click through the website pages, or is the navigation clear? 

 Visual design: Review competitor branding and their overall consistency. Does the
website appear and feel the same throughout all sections and pages? Does the
branding match the intended audience? Is the imagery and color palette memorable? 

 Content: Examine the written content included on the website. Does the tone of the
content match the company’s branding? Will users be able to find the details they’re
interested in? 

These are the aspects to list across the top row of the competitor audit. In the example
spreadsheet, these aspects are listed in rows 3 and 4. This means you would fill in information
about these aspects for each of the companies you’re evaluating.

Step 4. Research each company

Now that the list of competitors and features to compare is filled in, it’s time to check out each
of Burger Garden’s competitors and start the audit. If you were conducting your own audit,
you would fill out the spreadsheet row-by-row as you review each competitor. You can include
notes in bullet point form, links, and screenshots—whatever is most helpful for your
information gathering process! Let’s check out each section of the example spreadsheet. 
Audience

Millennials, including families, make up the biggest portion of the competitors’ audiences.
There’s also a small crossover between millennials and Gen-Z college students. This is very
similar to the audience that Burger Garden is targeting. Only one competitor, The Vegan Cow,
has a different audience. That’s okay! The Vegan Cow wasn’t included as a direct competitor
because their audience isn’t similar to Burger Garden’s. It’s still important to compare their
website and overall user experience to ensure you’re getting a good sense of the entire
market.

First impressions

The websites that make the best first impression are The Spotty Cow and The Vegan Cow. Both
provide appealing and clear imagery and are fully responsive websites. On the other end, the
websites for Beef Eaters and Burger Nest weren’t very impressive. While they’re easy to
navigate, they both need to work on improving their layouts.

For the mobile website experience, only one site had issues with responsiveness: Beef Eaters.
Their website didn’t adjust to the smaller screen size of a mobile phone, so the spacing was
misaligned and some information was cut off. 

For the sites with lower ratings, the biggest issue was the menu. Sometimes the menu wasn’t
accessible, and other times the menu was included as an image that was hard to read. That’s
definitely something to make note of for your redesign of the Burger Garden website! 
Interaction

The next part of the competitive audit focuses on the user’s ability to quickly and efficiently
find what they’re searching for on the website. Your client, Burger Garden, needs help to
create a hierarchy for their site that’s easier for users to follow and interact with. 

The Spotty Cow’s website includes animations that slow the navigation, and The Burger Nest’s
site has lots of unnecessary content on the homepage, which makes it hard to find important
information like their phone number and menu. On the other end of the spectrum, the
websites that work well have a clear navigation style and make it obvious which elements are
clickable and which aren’t—a characteristic that’s important to include in the redesign of
Burger Garden’s website. The Vegan Cow is the standout competitor in the category with
useful features like a store locator and comprehensive accessibility considerations including
multiple language options and compatibility with screen reader technologies.

Visual design
A website with clear and consistent visual design is a great way to draw users into a product
and company. Burger Garden’s current website has pretty solid visual design overall, but there
are a few areas that could be updated to better reflect their brand tone. 

The Spotty Cow and The Vegan Cow communicate their brand well with distinct colors,
typography, and photography. But Burger Nest and Beef Eaters both have an inconsistent
visual style on their websites, and Burger Nest’s site doesn’t communicate their brand very
well. 

Content

The tone of the content is another way to communicate a company’s brand and engage users.
Most of Burger Garden’s competitors use an engaging and fun tone that fits their audiences.
Burger Garden’s tone is a little inconsistent and not as light-hearted as its competitors. This is
an area for improvement when you redesign their website! 

In general, the competitors’ content is short and easy to follow. Burger Garden’s current
website descriptions come off as a bit dry and overly long, so you can point to competitors’
content as an example to follow.
Step 5. Summarize your findings in a report

After conducting research, gathering data, and analyzing your findings, summarize your work
in a report. What you include in your report and how you present your findings will vary
depending on the audit goals you outlined at the beginning of the process. For example, if your
audit mainly focuses on comparing competitors’ audiences, you might want to include a few
informational graphics with numbers and figures. Or, if your audit mainly focuses on visual
design, you might want to include screenshots of your competitors’ websites with different
areas highlighted. You’ll learn how to create a report summarizing your research findings in
more detail later on in the program, so don’t worry too much about it right now!

Completing your audit 

Conducting a competitive audit is a great way to familiarize yourself with user experience
design by getting more information about a new industry, a new client, and recent industry
trends. The information you learn can be used throughout the design process. If you can, it’s
best to take your time with the competitive audit process so you’ll have a great foundation of
knowledge to build your designs on moving forward. Good luck!

How to present a competitive audit

After researching direct and indirect competitors, and compiling those findings into a
spreadsheet, the next step is sharing your insights with your team or client. 

You can present your competitive audit as a written report or a slideshow presentation using
software like Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Apple’s Keynote. This course will teach
you how to present your audit findings as a written report, but in the workplace you can
choose from many different formats to demonstrate what you’ve learned to stakeholders. In
this reading, you’ll learn about some best practices for creating a slideshow presentation of
your competitive audit findings. 

Both written reports and slideshow presentations have their advantages. Slideshows are
dynamic and visually engaging, but require more time and effort to create and rehearse.
Written reports are more concise and less time-consuming to create. They’re an efficient way
to communicate insights quickly when your audience doesn’t have a lot of time. 

Later in the course, you’ll prepare to present a competitive audit for your portfolio project.
You’ll learn more about written reports when you get there. Right now, let's explore some best
practices for  presenting competitive audit findings as a slideshow presentation. Ready to learn
more? Here we go!

Tips for your slides and presentation structure

Every good presentation needs an introduction, so you’ll want to begin by laying out the goals
of your competitive audit. It’s also a good idea to outline your research questions,
methodology, and  the features or characteristics you compared across competitors.
Summarizing the purpose of your presentation makes it clear exactly what you're trying to
learn about the competition. Note that the example introductory slide below includes sections
for an objective, research questions, and procedures.

Slide that shows goals and methods, broken into Objective, Research Questions, and
Procedure. Objective: Burger Garden says their clients have lost interest in their product. We
audited industry competitors to understand how the BG app compares. Research Questions:
Are they attracting the right audience that they say they are speaking to? How does their app
look and feel? Does the design complement the product? Will the user get confused as they
navigate through the app? Procedure: We reviewed these aspects of each restaurant and their
app or website design: Audience, First Thoughts, User Interaction, Visual Design, and Content.

To organize your information for your audience, begin each section of your presentation with a
slide that identifies the section’s topic (similar to a chapter title in a book). Stick to simple,
clear visuals, like the bold text and solid background of the slide below:

Next, summarize what you learned about your competitors’ products, and how they compare
to yours. Be sure to point out where your product excels, as well as areas that need
improvement.

As you organize your presentation, think about the most effective ways to present your
insights. Keep the overall design as simple and clean as possible. Avoiding cluttered and
confusing imagery makes it easier for your audience to follow along and focus on the
important information. Note how the example slide below outlines  the most important
information and expands on it  in the section to the left:
Visual presentation of competitive audit findings for Burger Garden located in Kansas City,
Missouri. On the left of the presentation slide, text shows the cost of burgers (around $10
each), the business size (small), the audience (millennials), the unique value prop (large variety
of burgers and toppings), and the initial findings (clear branding identified in screenshot A,
content ton is inconsistent in screenshot B). On the right side of the slides are two screenshots.
Screenshot A shows the company name is clearly displayed at the top of their website.
Screenshot B shows text on the website that reads "Each ingredient implemented into our
burgers is of the highest grade and viscosity, assembled with diligence and care for your family
unit."

Finally, conclude your presentation with  a summary of key points and takeaways. As you
learned earlier, competitive audits can compare up to 10 companies. That’s a lot of
information for your audience to take in! A summary can refresh their memories by recapping
the most important information. 

Presenting data effectively

The way you present your data can influence how your audience interprets it. Keep in mind
that different types of data lend themselves to different formats. For example, if your
presentation has a lot of numbers or quantitative data, a chart or graph can help your
audience grasp how the numbers compare to one another. To demonstrate a specific function
or issue with a competitor’s product, consider including a screen recording in your
presentation. Finally, it can be helpful to include a rubric that explains the grading system you
used in your audit. For example, the rubric system used in the example audit graded the
burger restaurants from “needs work” to “outstanding.” Using that rubric, each restaurant was
rated on a scale of one to four in each category to create a final rating.

Delivering a strong presentation

Knowing what  to include in your presentation is only part of the process. As you prepare to
present your findings, keep these tips for effective presentations in mind:

 Get feedback from your team. Share your report or slides with a trusted teammate
ahead of time to get their take on how the information flows. 
  Limit the amount of text on your slides. Your slides should include just enough
information to draw attention to important points. Save the details for your speech. 

 Stick to the highlights. A presentation to your team or client should only focus on the
highlights of your audit. If you want to get into more detail, add them to the appendix
of your presentation or create a written report. 

 Use notes. An outline or note cards can help you stay focused, on topic, and on time. 

 Practice ahead of time. Do a few trial runs before the big day to get comfortable with
the content and pace of your presentation.

 Use relevant graphics. Make sure any images and graphics relate directly to the topic
of your presentation. Choose images and graphics carefully to ensure they enhance
clarity.

 Keep your biases in check. Be aware of your own design biases and try to prevent
them from clouding your judgment during the presentation.

 Be able to defend your conclusions. Make sure you have evidence to back up your
conclusions. Use actual data and specific examples whenever possible. 

Presenting your research can seem intimidating, but remember that you are representing your
users! Competitive audits give you, your team, and your clients knowledge that will help create
well-rounded product designs that work. To ease your presentation jitters, check out  this
article from Forbes for expert tips on connecting with your audience:  20 World-Class
Presentation Experts Share Their Top Tips.

Best practices for How Might We

Brainstorming possible solutions to your design problems is an opportunity to get creative and
have some fun! The “How might we” exercise is one of the most common ways to approach
the ideation process.

“How might we” (HMW) is a design thinking activity used to translate problems into
opportunities for design. HMW gets your creativity flowing and encourages you to think about
the problem from different perspectives. This new vantage point helps you create a wide
variety of solutions to the user problem you’re trying to address. During a HMW exercise,
you’d create a list of questions that start with “How might we” and use those to spark ideas for
solutions.

You'll learn about two different methods for design ideation in this lesson: HMW and Crazy
Eights. These are only a few of the many different ways you can ideate solutions to problems.
Completing a HMW activity isn't required for this course, but it might be helpful to start
sketching some of your ideas to get a feel for the process!

Frame HMW questions

To create good HMW questions, you need a well-defined problem statement. From there, you
can reframe this problem statement into questions that will help you come up with ideas to
solve the problem.

Consider this problem that a user, Darren, faces: Darren is a concert goer who needs to keep
track of their concert ticket because they need the ticket when they go through security. 

Let’s revisit those useful tips from the Stanford University design school that you learned about
in the video. These tips will help you reframe the problem from different angles.

Think of how you might use any positives in the problem as a solution. 

How might we make keeping track of tickets a fun competition among friends? 

Think of how you’d solve the opposite of the problem you’ve outlined. 

How might we create a way to lose tickets?

Think of ways to completely change the process. 

How might we make a non-paper concert ticket? 

This is especially helpful for long, complex problems. 

How might we keep the customer’s ticket from getting lost? How might we make a lost ticket
easier for the security team to handle?

Think of how to remove the negative part of the problem entirely. 

How might we make a way for concert goers to enter a venue without needing a ticket?

Take any negative adjectives and try to turn them into positives. 

How might we make the entry to a concert venue less stressful for ticket holders?
Remove or change any processes that you assume have to be in place.

How might we remove the security check process at a concert?

Think of ways to compare this user experience to another experience.  

How might we make going through security like playing a video game?

Think of how the problem might be solved by a resource that isn’t mentioned in the problem
statement. 

How might facial recognition software help manage concert entry?

If you want more inspiration, check out Stanford’s one-pager on “how might we” questions. 

Best practices for thinking of HMWs

Coming up with good HMWs takes a little practice, but you’ll get the hang of it in no time! Here
are some best practices to keep in mind:

 Be broad. A good HMW should allow for multiple solutions. For example, one of the
earlier questions, How might we make keeping track of tickets fun and competitive?,
can be answered in countless ways.

 But don’t be too broad. You want your HMWs to be comprehensive, but narrow
enough to keep your solutions focused. An example of a HMW question that is too
broad is: How might we make ticketing better? This HMW doesn’t provide clear
enough guidance to come up with ideas for solutions. 

 Make multiple drafts. It’s okay to change your HMW questions after you’ve written
them. If you find that your HMW doesn’t help you think of any useful solutions, change
it up!

 Be creative. HMWs are meant to be imaginative and even fun. You can use the list of
tips from Stanford above to think of new, creative ways to frame your questions.

 Write as many HMWs as you can. The more HMWs you have, the more solutions you
can come up with. If you can make more than one question out of the frameworks
you’ve learned, then go for it!

HMWs are a great way to start thinking of potential solutions during the ideate stage of the
design process. You can apply the HMW thinking process to your portfolio or CoffeeHouse
projects, but it is not required for course completion and doesn't need to be submitted.
Best practices for Crazy Eights

How do you feel about putting your ideas on paper? In this reading, you’ll learn more about
Crazy Eights, another popular design ideation exercise intended to help you think of several
ideas in record time. Remember that this is one of many possible ways to ideate. You'll
develop ideation methods that work best for you as you explore them over time.

Crazy Eights is a great way to get ideas flowing for any design problem you need to solve. With
Crazy Eights, you’ll sketch eight different designs, each with a new idea for solving the user’s
problem. The best part? It only takes eight minutes! Here’s a reminder of how it works:

 Start with a large sheet of paper. Fold the paper in half, then fold it in half again, then
in half one more time. When you unfold the paper, you’ll have eight squares to sketch
in.

 Grab something to draw with. A lot of designers prefer to draw using Sharpies, but a
pencil or pen will work too. You can use whatever you already have to draw. 

 Set your timer to eight minutes. You’ll have one minute to sketch each design idea.

 Let the ideas flow. Draw any and every solution that comes to your mind. If you have
more than eight ideas, feel free to repeat the exercise.

Just like that, you’ve got eight potential design solutions! Keep in mind that this exercise is
often done in a group setting. Each person draws eight sketches on their own, then the group
comes together to decide on their favorite ideas. Each person shares their top two or three
ideas with the whole group, or each person may vote on their favorite sketches from across
the team. The best ideas chosen will usually be elaborated on through more detailed sketches.

Best practices

Now that you know how to do a Crazy Eights exercise, check out some tips to make your
creativity flow freely while you sketch.

 Do a creative warm-up exercise. Complete an activity where you draw the person next
to you without looking at your paper, or have everyone draw their own interpretation
of a word or phrase. Starting to put pen to paper like this will get you in the mindset to
sketch.
  Make sure your problem is well defined. Develop a set of Crazy Eights for one How
might we question or one problem statement at a time.

 Don’t judge your ideas. Ideating is all about creating lots of ideas, not creating perfect
ones! Sketch any and every idea you have until your paper is full, no matter how crazy
it might seem.

 Don’t judge other people’s ideas. Keep an open mind when other people are
presenting their sketches. 

 Include a diverse group. Since Crazy Eights are often done in a group setting, it’s best
that your group represents a variety of work roles, experiences, abilities, genders, and
backgrounds. This will help your team have a wide range of ideas to choose from.

 Ideate in a comfortable environment. Do this exercise in a location that’s relaxed and

encourages creative thinking. It’s always great to get out of your normal work space
for creative exercises.

 Don’t be afraid of sketching. You don’t have to be an artist to be a UX designer, and

your sketches during Crazy Eights don’t have to be perfect. You just need to clearly
communicate your ideas. Stick figures are perfectly fine!

Benefits of Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights is an exciting design ideation exercise that generates a lot of ideas in a small
amount of time. If you have five people do the exercise at the same time, you’ll have 40
potential solutions after only eight minutes. That’s a lot of ideas!

Crazy Eights also forces you to think outside the box because you have to come up with many
ideas in a short timeframe, without judging them. This means that you will have lots of unique,
nontraditional solutions to consider.

This exercise is meant to be fun and fast paced, so enjoy yourself. Let your creativity flow
without judgement, and come up with some awesome ideas! In the next course item, you
have the option to complete a Crazy Eights exercise for your CoffeeHouse project if you so
choose.

If you want to learn more about how a company called Switch uses the Crazy Eights exercise,
check out this article, Crazy Concept Ideation with Crazy Eights.