1. Setting the scene
1.1. Self-criticism: engaging with new design tools
As well as creating a research-based user persona to help me focus my thinking, I also spent some time this week learning about user flows and competitive/comparative analysis. I found both of these topics quite a lot more difficult to engage with than the concept of user personas. I think this is at least in part due to the fact that making personas is an inherently creative (and simultaneously thoroughly research-based) activity: we are in effect creating fictional characters who we want our design teams to engage with, so they need to be both easy to digest and engaging (Marsh 2022: 254). This kind of 'content design'-based activity resonates with me, as it already constitutes a crucial part of my day-to-day activities as a UX Writer.
In contrast, user flows and competitive analysis are quite new to me, so it took me a little longer to begin to understand their value and how they fit into the design thinking process. Seeing other students’ examples on the weekly forums helped me to get a feel for how both of these tools can help us empathise more deeply with our users and start to think about how we can create design solutions that meet their needs as effectively as possible.
2. User flows
2.1. Breadth of analysis: exploring key skills and domains – creating user flows
To start to get a feel for how user flows help us to visualise the critical activities in a user’s journey, I sketched out a basic user flow for a task I complete at the end of every month: submitting an electricity meter reading to our energy company.
I thought I understood the basic concepts and visual language required to create a user flow. However, I soon ran into my first hurdle: a decision point presented three options (‘Scan meter’, ‘Enter manually’ and ‘Cancel’). How should I address this? From my initial understanding, I thought I needed to use a diamond to represent a decision, with two binary yes/no paths following on from it (Browne 2021). In this case, though, I had three paths, each with its own yes/no options.
My initial attempt resulted in a (mildly entertaining) spaghetti-like diagram of arrows looping and criss-crossing the page (see Fig. 1). Given that user flows are meant to communicate the user’s journey to team members in a way that they can quickly and easily understand, this certainly wasn’t the most user-friendly approach.
Fig. 1: A spaghetti-like user flow
Going back to the drawing board, I reasoned that, while the user did have to decide between these different options, the options themselves also constituted actions the user could take – and therefore, could be represented as three separate action boxes. This led to a much clearer and more easily digestible flow diagram (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: A non-spaghetti-like user flow
Once I’d completed my user flow, I could begin to see the value of pairing this technique with a tool like personas: while flows detail concrete actions taken within a user journey, from entry point through to final interaction (i.e. what users do) (Handley 2018), personas add a more emotional, human element to our understanding of our users (i.e. what users feel) – both of which are essential elements of a holistic, user-centred design approach.
2.3. SMART goal: create a user flow that’s more tailored to my project
While the user flow I created for this week’s challenge activity allowed me to practise using this tool for a product of my choosing, I’d also like to spend some time in Week 4 creating a user flow for at least part of the journey a potential user of my own (yet to be determined) product might take – for example, searching for a volunteering opportunity or filtering by skill set. This will help me start to picture the screens and components I might need to design. I’m planning on sketching out this flow after I’ve begun ideating potential solutions to my problem statement, so that I have a more solid idea of the kind of product I’ll be creating.
3. Competitive/comparative analysis
As with user flows, competitive/comparative analysis was a fairly new concept to me. I have done quite a lot of top-level competitor research when creating written content professionally – for example, researching the kinds of concepts and ideas others in my industry have focused on when drafting an article. However, I haven’t yet had much practice using this tool to think more holistically about the user journey and where I might be able to learn from and/or improve on a competitor’s approach to the design of a solution.
3.2. Depth of insight: enhancing my practice – practising competitor analysis
I struggled at first to choose which competitors/comparators to analyse. However, going back to my persona and affinity mapping, I could see that a clear theme was the desire to find an opportunity that allowed people to gain new skills through volunteering, giving them their ‘perfect volunteering match’.
With this in mind, I decided to analyse two direct competitors and one comparator that involved ‘matching’ people with relevant opportunities in some way. While the direct competitors ‘matched’ users with opportunities based on their skills and interests, the comparator combined the concepts of charitable giving and online dating to ‘match’ users with each other on 'volunteering dates'.
The structure of my competitive/comparative analysis was inspired by a fellow student’s work (Shippen 2023), using a simple presentation of columns and screenshots. I split my observations into ‘pluses’ (elements that enhanced the user experience) and ‘deltas’ (elements that didn’t necessarily detract from the user experience, but did offer scope for improvement). I found this to be an effective way to capture not just features (as is the case with a feature inventory), but also the functions, flows, and feeling evoked by the designs, giving me a more holistic overview of my competitors’ approaches (DaSilva 2020).
I noticed that I was naturally drawn to elements relating to language in each of the products I analysed. For example, I made comments relating to the tone of voice (“positive, clear, straightforward”; “formal and procedural”), terminology and calls to action (“exciting, encouraging”), and framing from the user’s perspective (“very clear purpose framed as a question the user might ask themselves”).
While I am keen to make every aspect of the final design as useful, usable, accessible, and desirable as possible, I want to take a content-led approach when it comes to creating my product, to make the experience as natural and conversational as possible (Redish 2012). Over the upcoming weeks, I plan on creating a voice chart alongside my initial wireframes that I can use to shape the content of the product as the visual design develops (Podmajersky 2019: 15–35).
3.3. SMART goal: conduct additional competitive/comparative analysis
Even though I gained some useful initial insights from my analysis (see more detail in my project Miro board), I think I could make my findings more robust by adding an additional comparator that already successfully matches people’s skills to relevant jobs – for example, LinkedIn. This could help me to generate ideas for how I might be able to match people with opportunities that allow them to develop new skills – something that was explicitly raised by 60% of participants in my user interviews. The skills listed in job descriptions will also help me to get a feel for the kinds of new skills people might be looking to develop through volunteering (perhaps to boost their chances of getting a job or help them make a career change). I plan on conducting this additional research alongside the activities in Week 4, or during Reading Week in Week 6 depending on my capacity this week.
4. Conclusions
This week has been a mix of creative and analytical work. I still feel more drawn to the more creative tools (i.e. personas), given that I’m more familiar with them than other techniques. But I can certainly see the benefits of the more analytical tools (i.e. user flows and competitive/comparative analysis) to help develop a more rounded picture of my potential users, their processes, and the problem space itself.
4.1. How satisfied do I feel with my work this week?
1 = Very satisfied , 2 = Quite satisfied, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Quite frustrated, 5 = Very frustrated
Start of week (pre-activities): 2 – fairly confident; I was pleased with the progress I made with my affinity map the week before and was excited to use my findings to develop practical design tools
Creating personas: 3 - a mix, as I was initially pleased with my first attempt, then became somewhat disheartened, but was then able to pick myself up again and create something I felt ultimately did a much more effective job at conveying my user’s key needs, goals, attitudes, behaviours, and stories
User flows: 3 - mixed, as I still feel I’ve had only limited practice with these. I think I’ll feel more confident once I’ve created a flow that’s more relevant to my project
Competitive/comparative analysis: 3 - again, I enjoyed the process and feel I gained some helpful insights, but there’s more work to do to provide a more solid basis for ideation
5. References
BROWNE, Camren. 2021. What are User Flows in User Experience (UX) Design? [online] Available at: https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/what-are-user-flows/ [accessed 11 February 2023]
DASILVA, Jill. 2020. A Guide to Competitive Analysis for UX Design [online]. Available at: https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/user-research/guide-to-competitive-analysis-ux-design/ [accessed 11 February 2023]
HANDLEY, Alexander. 2018. User flow is the new wireframe [online]. Available at:
https://uxdesign.cc/when-to-use-user-flows-guide-8b26ca9aa36a [accessed 11 February 2023]
MARSH, Stephanie. 2022. User Research. 2nd edition. London/New York/New Delhi: Kogan Page Limited.
PODMAJERSKY, Torrey. 2019. Strategic Writing for UX: Drive Engagement, Conversion, and Retention with Every Word. California: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
REDISH, Janice. 2012. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works. Massachusetts: Elsevier, Inc.
SHIPPEN, Sophie. Week 3: Personas and journey mapping [online]. https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPpYdbio=/ [accessed 11 February 2023].
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