Competitive Analysis 🔍 Prompts

SUMMARY

Purpose: Competitive Analysis (Strategy & Goals) helps product teams systematically examine direct and indirect competitors to uncover patterns, gaps, and strategic opportunities that inform UX design and positioning.

Design Thinking Phase: Define

Time: 45–60 min session + 1–2 hours analysis

Difficulty: ⭐⭐

When to use:When entering a crowded market or launching a new productTo realign product strategy based on UX differentiationBefore redesigning a core experience

What it is

Competitive Analysis (Strategy & Goals) is a UX research method used to examine competitors' products, content patterns, interaction models, and strategic positioning. Rather than surface-level feature comparisons, this method focuses on the deeper “why” behind design choices—revealing strengths, weaknesses, and whitespace opportunities that can guide your own design direction.

📺 Video by NNgroup. Embedded for educational reference.

Why it matters

Without a clear picture of the user and business landscape, teams risk duplicating generic UX patterns instead of solving user needs uniquely. Competitive analysis helps teams avoid “feature parity” mindsets and push toward product-market fit through informed differentiation. It grounds UX strategy by aligning it with user expectations, industry trends, and behavioural patterns already familiar to your audience—while helping you avoid the usability missteps of others.

When to use

• Before stakeholder alignment workshops, strategy sprints or roadmapping
• During discovery as part of product-market fit exploration
• When auditing an existing product for UX/brand gaps

Benefits

• Rich Insights: Helps uncover user needs that aren’t visible in metrics.
• Flexibility: Works across various project types and timelines.
• User Empathy: Deepens understanding of behaviours and motivations.

How to use it

• Start by identifying 3–5 relevant competitors (direct, indirect, aspirational).
• Assess their positioning, UX patterns, information hierarchy, product flows, and content strategies.
• Create a matrix: columns for competitors, rows for product areas and strategic criteria (onboarding, trust signals, CTAs, etc).
• Summarise each competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, user assumptions, and UX values (e.g., fast, transparent, robust).
• Identify opportunities to differentiate—based not just on what’s lacking, but on what matters most to your user personas.
• Document clear takeaways for how design can express your product’s strategic goals.

Example Output

Strategy Matrix Summary (Fictional Example – EV Charging App)

• Competitors: Tesla App, ChargePoint, VoltMate
• Strengths:
  • ChargePoint = Strong station discovery tools, localised info
  • Tesla App = Seamless product/vehicle integration
  • VoltMate = Clean UI, accessible booking
• Weaknesses: Fragmented feedback flows, inconsistent pricing clarity, lack of scheduling
• Differentiation Opportunity: Emphasise transparency in pricing estimates, reward incentives for eco-routing, real-time availability preferences

Common Pitfalls

• Feature Dumping: Simply listing what competitors do without analysing intent or UX impact.
• Context Ignorance: Making assumptions without understanding each competitor's business model or user base.
• Shallow Analysis: Focusing only on visual UI without diving into flow, feedback, or behaviour.

10 Design-Ready AI Prompts for Competitive Analysis – UX/UI Edition

How These Prompts Work (C.S.I.R. Framework)

Each of the templates below follows the C.S.I.R. method — a proven structure for writing clear, effective prompts that get better results from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or any other LLM.

C.S.I.R. stands for:

• Context: Who you are and the UX situation you're working in
• Specific Info: Key design inputs, tasks, or constraints the AI should consider
• Intent: What you want the AI to help you achieve
• Response Format: The structure or format you want the AI to return (e.g. checklist, table, journey map)

Level up your career with smarter AI prompts.Get templates used by UX leaders — no guesswork, just results.Design faster, research smarter, and ship with confidence.First one’s free. Unlock all 10 by becoming a member.

Prompt Template 1: “Generate a UX Strategy Comparison Table”

Generate a UX Strategy Comparison Table

Context: You are a Senior UX Researcher preparing a stakeholder presentation on strategic gaps in your product design compared to competitors.
Specific Info: You’ve analysed 3 main competitors across onboarding, IA clarity, key conversions, and content trust signals.
Intent: Summarise each competitor’s UX strategy strength and weakness in a high-level matrix.
Response Format: Provide a markdown-style table with columns for: Competitor, UX Strengths, UX Gaps, Observed User Goals, Strategic Implication.

If any category or assumption seems unclear, ask a clarification question before starting. Suggest a follow-up action to validate one of the gaps internally.