Creating an effective UX portfolio
You can probably relate to the challenges of building a portfolio from postponement to countless iterations on design, content, structure, or decisions. After iterating on my own portfolio quite a lot and also reviewing many candidates’ portfolios I like to share with you some thoughts about how to make the portfolio more effective.
Procrastination
A word that most of us can relate to when it comes to creating our personal portfolio. It may appear in numerous contexts: I don’t have inspiration today, I’ll start it tomorrow, actually, I don’t know where to start, the ideas just keep coming I will never finish, I already have my work on Dribbble and Behance, that should be enough. An I can go on and on. Excuses are the easiest to find.
The consequence is that when the time comes and someone asks for your portfolio and you don’t have it or it’s not complete, you either don’t send it or send the unfinished version that doesn’t really reflect your real capabilities.
So procrastination is no secret. But why does this really happen? Well, one cause could be a lack of a plan. Transform your portfolio into a goal, set a deadline, and plan to work on it for a number of hours a day or a week, depending on the context you’re in. Treat it like a real project, because it is. And I may say it is the most important one for you and your career because it summarizes your experience and acquired knowledge. And it’s also maybe your first contact with a design manager or with a team you want to work with. Think of what first impression would you like to give?
Think of it as a retrospective of your work at certain points in time. You may be surprised at how many things you’ve learned and accomplished in a year, for example.
The Process
We all know in theory what a process is, right? Reaching from A to B following a number of clear steps. Pretty easy. How does the process for creating a portfolio look like in reality? A>D>Z>S>C>W>…>B
Like I said, treating your portfolio like a real project also means applying the process like in your day-to-day work. Imagine that you are building another person’s portfolio. How? By being loyal to the process will help you be objective in your decisions and keep things on track.
Research
It should be normal for a UX Designer to start with research. Watch youtube videos, find and analyze other’s portfolios, there is a ton of them available online. Look at structure, design, and content. Take notes, screenshots, bookmark what you like, and let the information settle.
Try to create a brief persona for the interviewer’s profile. It will help a lot when deciding what to point out from your work. If you are building the portfolio for a certain position, even better. Do some research on the company, on the product, service, or customers. Create a company profile, learn what their design process is, and even get in touch with someone that works there to find out more, why not?
Content
The portfolio content structure is fairly simple.
- Description
- Case Studies
- Other Projects that you may be involved in
- Contact information.
Description
Make sure that the description contains, besides the name, a brief summary of who you are what your skills are and what areas you have experience in, like startup environments, enterprise, e-commerce, volunteering, whatever. If you have a nice picture of yourself to help with personification would be great.
Case Studies
The ideal number of case studies should be between 3 to 5. Each case study should look like a story. Why? Because storytelling captivates audiences.
Not so long ago, around 300 BC the greeks discovered that splitting a play into 3 acts: setup, confrontation, and resolution, made people more captivated by the story. How can you apply this in your case study?
First, create a context by adding a description of the project, who you worked with, and what was your role, and the time period. Also here is a good place to state what was the big challenge that you worked on.
For the second act, the confrontation, be honest and show you failed a couple of times. Show some early sketches, briefly talk about a couple of experiments and feedback you received. What you’ve learned and how you iterated on your solutions.
For the final act, the resolution, it’s time to reach the climax and show those nice, shiny, and slightly skewed screens. Point out what were the outcomes, like any improved metrics, great feedback from customers or why did that project fail?
When building your story, do the elevator pitch exercise for a case study, not for selling the product, but for selling your contribution to the product. Keep in mind that whoever looks at your portfolio will take no more than 1 to 3 minutes to review it. So keep it brief, well structure, and order the case studies based on relevance for the company you applied to.
Other Activities
Were you involved in other activities like growing a community, volunteer for conferences, personal projects, writing articles, maybe courses you’ve toked where you had some assignments to complete, whatever experience you think it’s relevant for your portfolio, don’t hesitate to add it in, especially if you don’t have too many projects you’ve worked on so far.
Your portfolio needs to show what makes you unique, what value you can bring to a team, and create the prospects of good collaboration.
Design
When it comes to designing your portfolio, I suggest you use mobile-first principles. Remember that content is key. Use a clear hierarchy, and don’t clutter and distract with unnecessary visual elements. Keep it simple, stupid.
Test your portfolio with others, preferably with people who have experience in interviewing designers. Revisit your portfolio constantly and try to keep it up to date, to avoid hard work when you’ll need it.
It’s not easy to nail down your portfolio, I know. It may be one of the longest projects you work on in your entire career. But I think it’s worth it. Because it reflects your growth and reminds you that the “Future you” should be better than the “Present you”, in every way.
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