To further my research now I had a better idea of what shape my project was going to take I wanted to carry out a competitor analysis. A competitor analysis is a key part of the research and discovery phase of any project as it allows you to look at other products or services that are doing what you are looking to do (direct competitors) or who are doing part of what you are doing or doing it in a different sector (indirect competitors). A through competitor analysis will allow you to look at your competitors allowing you to see what they are doing well and where there are opportunities for you to improve on their offering.
For my competitor analysis I want to put myself in the position of my user as I use a competitor product and find out what works well and what doesn’t. This is a key UX skill and we covered it in class in week 2, were we split into teams and analysed a local GP practice website across six key tasks a user would like to complete. As you can see in the photograph below this provided lots of things to look at. It was a very useful exercise especially as part of a group as we could compare our own opinions on what was good or bad with each other.
I am aware I may not find many direct competitors for my idea or any that I do find may not be freely accessible for me to evaluate, so I may have to look at more indirect competitors to get inspiration.
As my idea covers multiple features, finding a direct competitor that also covers the same areas is challenging. I therefore had to think differently and consider the different things I wanted to include in my apps and look for apps that covered these. This meant mainly indirect competitors or partial competitors who provided some of the services I wanted to provide but not all.
As I see refugees who are just arriving in a country as potentially in an emergency situation I wanted to look at apps that are used during natural disasters and emergency situations. This led me to a PDF that contained a list of apps created by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for people to use in a natural disaster. While not all of these apps are applicable to what I am trying to create there were some good options on the list.
*https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/cpd/emergency-prep-apps.pdf (Last Accessed 19/02/23)*
It did lead me to some apps designed for emergency workers in disaster situations.
The first of these is called SAMHSA, this app offers information for people on the ground at an emergency, this information includes locations where you can get treatment, local hotlines for mental health and advice on how to approach those in need and what questions to ask. This final point is the one that interests me as I feel this is something I need to offer, a way to explain to my users what they need to do and how to interact with the people they are dealing with.
Looking at the screenshots from this app, it looks quite old in its visual style, while the information is clear and readable I do believe it could be improved. It looks like an app where the fact that it works is the key consideration and that only very little attention has been given to the design. I feel that a better design could make this app much better. However, the information it provides is very helpful and it does seem to be a very clear interface with only the functionality required included and I think this is something I need to remember in my design, that the people using my app will be in a challenging situation and under pressure so I need to avoid placing any extra cognitive load on them and make my app as easy and intuitive as possible to use.
Source: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.hhs.samhsa.app.disaster&WT.ac=LP_20140206_DISASTERAPP_GOOGLEPLAY (Last Accessed 19/02/23)
The Show Me for Emergencies app was also included on the list from the Wisconsin Department for Health and is an app designed to aid communication between emergency/medical staff and people who have difficulty communicating either due to a hearing impairment or because they do not speak English.
The app allows different methods to allow communication including sign language, text input or a interpreter it also uses icons to aid understanding. It helps staff in emergency shelters tell those seeking help what is going on and how they are going to help.