Design portfolios are a hot topic in the UX world. Regardless of where your portfolio lives or how you created it, there's one thing that we can all agree on: it's not just about the pretty pictures.
The people who are viewing your portfolio want to know more about the projects, how you fit in and the process you followed to get you to the final result.
We communicate this information through case studies. Let's walk through seven steps to laying out a case study in your UX design portfolio.
1: The design problem and the hypothesis you came up with for solving it. What problems did you observe while watching users? What did your stakeholders ask you to build? Was there a difference between what you heard versus what you saw? How did you set yourself up to solve that problem?
2: your specific role and how you collaborated with others on your team. Rarely are we ever alone on our own UX island.
Potential employers want to hear how you collaborate with others, and how your work integrates with the rest of a cross-functional team.
You can talk about your facilitation skills here and how your work impacted the team.
3: How you came to your Proposed Solution introduce your solution and how you came up with it. This is where your pretty pictures come in, whether those are screen shots or high fidelity mock-ups.
In addition to the pretty pictures, explain how you came to the ultimate decision that this was going to be the best solution for your users.
4: how your solutions solve the problem. What can your users do now that they couldn't do before? How does this solution change their daily life?
5: the challenges you've faced. Were there additional design concepts that you came up with that you can show here? Sketches, journey maps, and photos from workshops or usability testing give a sneak peek into the nitty-gritty of your process.
This is what potential employers want to see. It may feel messy and unfinished to you, but this is the bulk of your process ,and it's incredibly important for people who are trying to envision what it's like to work with you.
6:How the Project affected users and the Business your case study is communicating how the project affected users and the business. Did you notice an in crease in user satisfaction? Or an increase in adoption or engagement? Use tangible numbers here whenever possible.
7:what you learned. This can be for you personally, or lessons that the team learned about how to work on projects like this in the future.
When you finish creating a case study for your portfolio, seek feedback from those who view it, whether they're colleagues or interviewers.
Another set of eyes on your portfolio will help catch spelling and grammar errors, confusion about content and the overall usability of the format you chose.
Your portfolio will always be a work in progress. Be prepared to iterate on it until it works for you.
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