There’s more than one way to assess the competition, but not all methods lead to actionable design decisions. When done right, UX competitive analysis uncovers friction, recognizes what users already expect, and identifies key points of influence others may miss.
In our work, we’ve seen how well-structured competitive analysis in UX clarifies product strategy. This article walks through the methods we use, what to evaluate, and how we’ve applied it across fintech, B2B, and AI-powered platforms.
Key takeaways
- As a powerful design tool for smarter product decisions, UX competitive analysis lies deep beyond market research.
- Visual competitive analysis helps uncover hidden UX friction and surface strategic opportunities for growth.
- Direct vs. indirect competitors yield different insights; both matter.
Why competitive research in UX matters on early stages
In this short video, UX specialists explain the difference between competitive reviews and competitive research:
- One looks at surface features
- The other reveals deep patterns in behavior, structure, and usability
That distinction is critical for product teams aiming to scale.
When redesigning a global fintech app, we began with a focused competitive UX analysis process. Rather than jumping into UI tweaks, our design team examined how top players handled money transfers, onboarding, and card creation flows.
Insight that came directly from analyzing real user flows: competing products had cluttered multi-step flows for everyday actions. Our redesign simplified currency conversion and card setup to just a few clicks.
Benchmarking competitors gave us a faster route to user delight.
{{Oleksandr Koshytskyi}}
Visual competitive analysis in action
Some UX insights can’t be uncovered from analytics dashboards alone. That’s where visual competitive analysis comes in mapping how different platforms structure key user flows.
In the AfroTech project, we examined mainly indirect competitors to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in design execution. The goal was to extract solutions worth adapting and use them to sharpen AfroTech’s experience strategy.
We analyzed:
- Website navigation
- Homepages
- Video and article pages
- Pillar/topic structures
- User profiles
- Search result layouts
This research led to a clearer content architecture that aligned better with user expectations and supported faster discovery.
🔍 Pro tip: Audit pathways. Track how competitors guide users from discovery to depth: homepage → category → content → conversion. This reveals where their UX scaffolding holds and where it collapses. Then reverse-engineer what your structure needs to support sustained engagement.
Go beyond obvious with UX competitive audit
In Matta’s B2B marketplace for chemicals, we dove deep into search UX by examining direct competitors: Knowde, PinPools, CheMondis; and indirect ones like Faire, Printify, and Silo.
Key findings from UX сompetitive audit included:
- Knowde’s advanced filters, combined with dynamic search hints, improved precision.
- Some platforms enabled users to request quotes directly from search results.
- Saving search presets was uncommon but highly valued by expert users.
These insights informed Matta’s feature roadmap, prioritizing efficient workflows and clarity tailored for R&D professionals.
🔍 Pro tip: Don’t limit your audit to visible UX patterns. Dig into the absent or underdeveloped interactions competitors overlook. These blind spots reveal unmet user needs and hidden opportunities where your product can leap ahead.
Website design competitive analysis at content level
Organizing complex multimedia and AI-generated content requires a deep understanding of competitor structures. For Pika AI, a next-gen AI-powered search engine, our team conducted a website design competitive analysis focusing on how competitors organize search results, topic pages, and taxonomy depth.
We mapped:
- Labeling systems and metadata exposure
- Visual groupings and content hierarchy
These visual content maps guided how we grouped and presented AI assets, resulting in faster content scanning and clearer user orientation.
Beyond structural analysis, we performed a common UX patterns analysis focused on search engine user experience. We identified recurring design practices and pitfalls to avoid when building search interfaces.
🔍 Pro tip: Rely on screenshots and annotated visuals instead of plain notes. Visual audits speed up spotting subtle UX patterns and inconsistencies, enabling you to build content strategies grounded in real user behavior.
How to structure UX competitive research for maximum value
A competitive analysis in UX design that truly drives product success requires a clear, systematic framework:
- Segment the competitors carefully
Identify both direct competitors who target the same user base and solve similar problems, and indirect competitors that might serve overlapping user journeys or adjacent market needs. This competitive landscape mapping provides a more complete picture of evolving market trends and external factors influencing user expectations. - Define and prioritize critical touchpoints
Focus your UX competitive analysis on key areas such as onboarding, search functionality, content discovery, and conversion funnels. Understanding where and how users interact with these touchpoints reveals pain points and usability issues critical to shaping a superior user experience. - Map gaps, redundancies, and opportunities
Use heuristic evaluation, usability testing, and swot analysis techniques to spot where competitors either over-engineer features or omit crucial functionality. Identifying these market gaps uncovers hidden competitive advantages and helps identify opportunities for innovation aligned with your target audience’s needs. - Translate insights into actionable hypotheses
The goal of competitor analysis is to inform the design process with valuable insights that fuel user research and iteration. Develop clear hypotheses about how specific UX improvements will solve user problems or increase business value, and embed these into your product roadmap. - Document findings
Create detailed reports combining annotated screenshots from competitors' websites, user flow diagrams, and key metrics gathered via usability testing and user feedback. Sharing these insights cross-functionally supports alignment between UX designers, product managers, and developers in the iterative process of delivering better products. - Continuously update and validate your UX competitive audit
Competitive analysis is an ongoing effort. Regularly revisit your full-site UX audit and monitor emerging competitors to adapt your UX strategy in response to shifting industry trends and evolving market position. Incorporate real-world user feedback and analytics to ensure your product’s user interface remains aligned with expectations.
Real value emerges by revealing steps overlooked by others. Finding these hidden gaps enables us to deliver a unique, intuitive, and meaningful user experience.
{{Oleksandr Koshytskyi}}
UX competitive analysis toolstack
A great UX competitive analysis isn’t just about what you evaluate, it’s also about how. Using the right tools at each stage helps you move faster, uncover richer insights, and collaborate better across teams.
Below is our go-to toolstack, refined through dozens of audits across fintech, B2B, and AI product design.
Stage 1. Research
Identify what users love or hate about competitors and where the real pain points lie.
🔍 Pro tip: Search “[Competitor Name] + frustration” on Reddit or G2 to surface honest UX feedback you won’t find in a product tour.
Stage 2. Capture
Document visual flows, microinteractions, and structural decisions competitors make.
🔍 Pro tip: Organize your visuals by flow category (e.g., onboarding, search, checkout). This makes trend spotting 10x easier.
Stage 3. Analysis & synthesis
Turn raw observations into actionable design opportunities.
🔍 Pro tip: Add a column in Airtable for “UX Opportunity Rating” (1–5) based on user impact and ease of implementation.
So, are you ready to find the UX gaps your competitors overlooked?
Reach out — our team will turn raw market data into a clear design playbook for growth.
