<aside> ⭐ The SWOT Analysis reflects internal factors of a project to assess external factors. Here, the areas of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are reflected upon to help teams and individuals to classify and question their (product) concept.
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Many products fail because they don’t solve a real user problem. Without really understanding the user, you aren’t practicing UX; you’re subjectively designing features. To put it simply, without the user, there is no UX. It’s just X. That said, there is more to UX than just the user.
UX is at the center of technology, business, and the user. Without the business, UX can’t exist, at least not as a career. Knowing the business objectives behind a feature is incredibly important. A SWOT analysis gives you a detailed insight into a company and its position in the market.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Internal factors that positively impact the company such as knowledge, brand reputation, intellectual property, etc.
Internal factors that negatively impact the company such as low funding, poor product quality, bad customer service, etc.
External factors that have the potential to positively impact the company such as acquiring competitors, strong market growth predictions, international presence, etc.
External factors that have the potential to negatively impact the company such as government regulations, new competitors, economic downturns, etc.
<aside> 🎯 Using Spotify as an example, imagine that in your SWOT analysis you learned that the podcast market is growing, which is a business opportunity. Later on, when you find user pain points, you discover that users are frustrated to have to use competitors’ apps to listen to podcasts. You’ve just found an opportunity worth pursuing.
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