As an aspiring UX designer, you probably also have tons of great ideas that you want to turn into fully-designed portfolio projects. But how do you learn the right process to follow to turn those high-level ideas into comprehensive and well-researched projects that will impress employers?

Don’t worry – you’re not alone. We’ve spoken with dozens of experienced designers and hiring managers over the past year as we’ve built up our Design Portfolio Starter Kit to try to understand just what makes an impressive junior UX portfolio and how new designers can maximize their chances of creating a portfolio that will help them get a job.

In this article, I’m sharing a few of those tips to help you build your own amazing UX portfolio.

Figure out what types of UX work interest you and become an expert

First things first: what types of projects should you include in your portfolio?

The simple answer is that you should focus on what interests you most, and develop a deep expertise in that specific area of UX design. Employers want to hire candidates that have a demonstrated interest and expertise in the specific type of work they’ll be spending most of their time doing. So take time to figure out what interests you the most and then dive deep.

If you don’t know what kind of UX work interest you most, do a simple test. Spend a few hours browsing and using a variety of different websites and apps (use a site like Awwwards or CSS Winner for ideas). Take careful notes of what you enjoy most about them, writing down details about the sites and apps you like using most.

After a few hours, take a look at your notes and try to identify any patterns in the things you liked most. Were you most impressed by how easy it was to use certain apps and websites and logically find the information you were seeking? You might be interested in information architecture.

Did you get the most pleasure out of the visual aesthetic of some of the apps you were using? Then a role as a user interface designer might be best for you. Also pay attention to the types of products you enjoy working on, whether that’s mobile apps, ecommerce stores, or startup websites.

Whichever type of UX/UI design you find yourself gravitating towards, start to develop a deep expertise in that field. Simultaneously, employers love well-rounded designers so be sure to supplement your studies with learning about broader design principles as well.

For instance, if you decide to focus on UX design, make sure you fully understand research, user flows, and user testing so that your designs are informed by well-tested UX processes. And if you’re more interested in pure UI work, learn about design principles like grids, color theory, and typography, as well as fundamentals like hierarchy and repetition so that you can turn your research and user flows into beautiful final products (or at least work well with designers who can).

Once you’ve decided which subset of the UX field to focus on, it’s time to come up with project ideas.

Come up with projects that solve real problems

Early in your UX career, your portfolio will probably feature a lot of projects that you’ve come up with on your own. While having “real work” in your portfolio is always great, employers understand that you won’t necessarily have real projects to show when you’re just getting started. If your portfolio is going to be comprised of mostly theoretical work, it’s absolutely crucial for those projects to focus on solving real problems.

There are a few different ways to solve real problems with your first few UX projects. The most straightforward way is to think about problems that exist in your daily life or in industries you’re interested in and brainstorm how you could create a UX project to solve those problems.

For instance, if you’re interested in sports but live in a city, you could create a website or mobile app that makes it easy for anyone to find local intramural sports teams they can join. Or if you are passionate about nonprofits but have trouble finding places to buy nonprofit apparel, you could design an ecommerce site where nonprofits can sell their products. It’s really as simple as that. Spend 30 minutes writing down industries you care about, and problems in those industries, and use that as a basis for your project ideas.

Another easy way to solve real problems with your projects is to launch your own side project. There are thousands of great side project ideas you can design and launch in just a few weeks, so do the same exercise of writing down a list of possible side projects you could work on and choose the one that excites you most and can leverage the type of UX work you want to do. This could be creating an ecommerce site where you sell prints of your own artwork, an online course where you teach a specific skill, or anything else you care about!

From here, it’s time to move on to the actual project creation process, the most crucial step.

Follow the correct process – don’t skip steps

One of the biggest pieces of feedback from hiring managers is that many junior design portfolios showcase beautiful single screen designs without any context behind the project.

You can design the most beautiful landing page imaginable but if you don’t have a process behind it and a story explaining how you got to the final design, employers will move on to another candidate. After all, they want to hire someone who can solve problems, iterate on their designs based on research and testing, and ultimately reach the final design only after completing those steps.

If you have a great idea for a project, it can be tempting to jump right into Sketch or InVision to wireframe and prototype the idea right off the bat. We recommend taking a breath and following a few steps before that phase, steps that you’ll need to follow in any client or job setting.

First, do research. Look at similar products to see how they tackled the same problem. What decisions did they make that you like and what about their designs don’t you agree with? After this, create user personas, outlining who is actually going to be using this product and why they’re going to use it. What are their primary goals when interacting with this product?

Next, get your ideas out on paper. Sketch out thumbnails of what the design could potentially look like. These don’t need to be too detailed – get every idea, good or bad, down on paper in 20 minutes. Next, depending on the complexity of the project, you might need to create a user flow to show how the user will move through the full web or app experience. From there, create wireframes and ultimately prototypes.

At this phase, it’s time to test. Get a “sample user” (a friend or peer) to test out the wireframe or prototype. Watch how they use it and ask them to explain what they like and dislike about it. Based on their feedback and how they naturally use the prototype, make adjustments as needed. From there, it’s finally time to create it into a high fidelity design, incorporating colour and typography and ensuring that the designs are consistent across screens.

It’s a pretty straightforward process that so many people choose to ignore, but we’ve been told by many hiring managers that following this process will help you stand apart from so many other UX designers.

Showcase your projects as detailed case studies

Most recruiters only spend around 60 seconds reviewing a portfolio before they decide whether to give the candidate an interview. So it’s absolutely crucial to cleanly and logically showcase your projects on your portfolio site. You should show every project as a case study so employers can understand your thought process and get a feeling for how you’d solve similar problems if you worked for them.

Start by outlining the initial problem, how you approached solving it, and then showing your process as you went. This can include early wireframes and sketches and then slowly show the iteration of the project, including details of when you received feedback (and from whom) as you went. Also be clear about your role on the project if you had any help. Finally, show the beautiful final designs mocked up.

Conclusion

So get out there and come up with ideas for your first UX portfolio projects!

Creating your first UX portfolio is an exciting process. Even though it can feel overwhelming, try to take it one project at a time. Think about problems you really care about solving and don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Employers will respect you more for the complex problems you’re trying to solve than the beautiful visuals you end up creating.

If you ever need help coming up with project ideas for your portfolio or need guidance to actually turn your ideas into full-formed final designs, check out the UX Design Portfolio starter kit we created at RookieUp, which includes tons of projects, resources, and guides to help you craft an amazing portfolio on your own.

How did you create your first UX portfolio? What types of projects did you use for examples? Leave a comment here or share your tips in the forums!

The post How to Develop Project Ideas for Your UX Portfolio appeared first on UX Mastery.

It was so popular that we’re running a couple of follow up portfolio mentoring sessions, this time focusing on the different aspects of presenting your work to prospective employers in the best possible light.

In the first session Louise will cover questions like

• What counts as portfolio material?
• What results should I display?
• How do I promote my portfolio?”

The second session will be defined by the most popular themes in the first.

The Details

• Where: Our dedicated ‘Ask Louise’ Slack channel.
• When:
  Session 1: Noon Wednesday 23 November PDT or 7am Thursday 24 November AEST
  (find out what time that is for you)
  Session 2: Noon Wednesday 7 December PDT or 7am Thursday 8 December AEST 
  (find out what time that is for you)

Meet Louise Campbell

Louise Campbell is a Lead UX Design consultant for giant eCommerce companies. She started out at 19 as a junior print designer for Littlewoods Home Shopping Group. Over the last 15 years has worked her way up to consulting for luxury e-commerce companies including Net-a-porter.com, MrPorter.com, The Body Shop, Benna.co.uk, and travel giant Greyhound.com.

Louise is also a career transition coach for ambitious graphic designers who want to make it big in UXD. She teaches a free weekly mini-class to show you ‘How to Create a Persuasive Portfolio’ at UpSkillMastery.com.

How to Ask Your Questions

If you can’t make the live session but have questions, we’d love to collect them ahead of time and we’ll ask Louise on your behalf. You can submit your questions here. We’ll publish the responses (along with the full transcript) in the days following the session.

How do Mentoring Sessions work?

These sessions run for approximately an hour each and best of all, they don’t cost a cent. We run them in our dedicated public Slack channel. .

The post UX Portfolio Mentoring Sessions with Louise Campbell appeared first on UX Mastery.

We had a record number of attendees, and although Louise typed faster than I can think, we still didn’t get through all the questions.

If you don’t have a portfolio (or you’re not happy with the one you do have) then you need to read this transcript. It is gold.

Also, don’t miss Louise’s offer to get your copy of the pitch and contract outline that scored Louise her first $12K client.

If you didn’t make it because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions. If you have follow up questions for Louise, you can ask them here.

If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

 Transcript

hawk

2016-09-22 18:00

OK guys, let’s get this show on the road

suzi.sarmento

2016-09-22 18:00

Yaaayyy

hawk

2016-09-22 18:01

First up, a warning. It’s only 6am here and I’m over-caffienated

suzi.sarmento

2016-09-22 18:01

hahaahahah

tyler

2016-09-22 18:01

@dave I don’t think I’m quite sure what role I am aiming for I enjoy User Interface but I would like to do more UX work. its a tough call. I like it all

desertcoder

2016-09-22 18:01

@hawk that means you’ll be typing faster. :slightly_smiling_face:

lambiris

2016-09-22 18:01

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

jxslepton

2016-09-22 18:01

I’m under caffienated so maybe it’ll balance out lol

hawk

2016-09-22 18:01

Second, this looks like a VERY popular session, so go easy on us!

hawk

2016-09-22 18:02

I’ll start by introducing @lou and saying a huge thanks to her for her time today.

hawk

2016-09-22 18:02

I’ll introduce here, she’ll introduce the session, and we’ll open the floor to questions

lou

2016-09-22 18:02

Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be here :slightly_smiling_face:

hawk

2016-09-22 18:02

I’ll queue your questions for Louise in a back channel, and she’ll answer them in order

hawk

2016-09-22 18:03

We don’t have time in this session for portfolio reviews, so if you want your portfolio looked at, please post in this topic on the community http://community.uxmastery.com/t/portfolio-reviews-from-louises-ama-session/2026

lou

2016-09-22 18:03

How can I help you create a persuasive portfolio?

israel

2016-09-22 18:03

@tyler: ah ok. Just FYI I wouldn’t download info if I can’t see it on the site. I know other recruiting manager won’t do that or have the time to do it. I would said select a couple of what you considered you best work and focus on that. And just put a section that more samples are available upon request. We do that a lot if we are interested on a candidate. Good luck.

rswild

2016-09-22 18:03

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:03

@hawk A general portfolio structure question: Is it better to show deliverables (e.g. designs, content inventories, etc) or process (e.g. here is what I/we did to get to where we ended up)?

hawk

2016-09-22 18:03

I suspect we won’t get through all the qs today either, so we can continue the conversation there too

hawk

2016-09-22 18:04

So Louise is a Lead UX Design consultant for giant eCommerce companies. She started out at 19 as a junior print designer for Littlewoods Home Shopping Group. Over the last 15 years has worked her way up to consulting for luxury e-commerce companies including http://Net-a-porter.com, http://MrPorter.com, The Body Shop, http://Benna.co.uk, and travel giant http://Greyhound.com.

hawk

2016-09-22 18:04

She is also a career transition coach for ambitious graphic designers who want to make it big in UXD. She teaches a free weekly mini-class to show you ‘How to Create a Persuasive Portfolio’ at http://UpSkillMastery.com.

hawk

2016-09-22 18:04

And we’re lucky to have her time

hawk

2016-09-22 18:04

Over to you @lou

lou

2016-09-22 18:04

Thanks @hawk been a crazy long day here :slightly_smiling_face: I need more cafffinnneeee

lou

2016-09-22 18:05

@desertcoder I love this question

lou

2016-09-22 18:05

“I’m working as a Business Analyst in UX right now. It seems all staff have a portfolio to share, except me. While I’ve tinkered around with wireframes in Axure, I’m wondering if screen captures of my work would count towards “portfolio” material.”

pesenson

2016-09-22 18:05

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

tyler

2016-09-22 18:05

@israel very interesting! Last year when I was applying I only had 4 projects and I thought I had a severe lack of work in my portfolio so I added more I guess that wasn’t the best strategy

lou

2016-09-22 18:06

So you can create user flow in Axure that you can host on their softwear that is password protected you can use this to show potential clients what you worked on and what parts you were responsible for adding value to… does that help?

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:06

@lou Question: For someone switching from a related career (me: front-end developer). How many UX projects should you have in your portfolio? How much of the UX process should you show?

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:07

@ux_dude I’m in the same boat. :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: former front-end dev here.

desertcoder

2016-09-22 18:07

Yes, thank you. When you say “user flow” do you mean showing the process or do you mean actual workflow?

rvaelle

2016-09-22 18:08

I’m not sure where to start to improve my portfolio http://www.serviceease.net. I know I need more projects and experience and it reflects that.

lou

2016-09-22 18:08

@nwhysel it all depends on how valuable the work is to your future employer… will it add value to their work…

claraearendil

2016-09-22 18:08

@ux_dude current front-end wanting to switch to UX

jeanna

2016-09-22 18:08

any advice for how to present a portfolio when someone asks to see your “thought process” and not just artifacts?

irinahpda

2016-09-22 18:08

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

lou

2016-09-22 18:09

@nwhysel your portfolio need to be a good content fit for your potential employer.

kailualisa

2016-09-22 18:09

@jeanna excellent question!

claraearendil

2016-09-22 18:09

@lou how to even get started with your portfolio when you’re switching careers?

sonia2016

2016-09-22 18:09

@lou How do I sell myself , I dont have much work to put in my portfolio and I am transitioning from Social Work. I have applied for Junior level positions but have not received any positive responses. Most of these jobs want years of experience.

nwhysel

2016-09-22 18:10

@lou Does that mean different portfolio for different prospective employer? I sometimes do create a special link on my website but people just coming to the site are going to see a lot more: blog, events/presentations, past projects, slideshare, resume, etc.

desertcoder

2016-09-22 18:10

@jeanna how about adding photos of your journey mapping process or story mapping process to show your “thought process”?

lou

2016-09-22 18:10

@dave generalist is good if that’s what you are interviewing for. You need to align your portfolio with the job you are going for. Focus. Take out stuff that’s not 100% focused on the clients needs. I hope that helps!

renat

2016-09-22 18:10

@lou Luxury UX – what it is?

israel

2016-09-22 18:11

@tyler yes at least we don’t mind if you only have a couple projects since we are looking specifically for a UX designer we are looking at those skills. I guess you’ll need to decide which one you would like to purse since you have a variety. Are you looking to be in UX UI only? Then I’ll concentrate on those pieces only.

dave

2016-09-22 18:12

@dave pinned a message to this channel.

irinahpda

2016-09-22 18:13

DO you have many QA roles switching to UX?

lou

2016-09-22 18:13

@sonia2016 I never took expensive courses I learned everything to do with UX in the work place. Break into UX design by focusing on one area to start off with – say Research, and then look for research roles, perhaps job shadow a colleague, do everything you can to get experience in that one area you can then add value to employers in that area! Focus is the key…

tyler

2016-09-22 18:13

@israel yes specifically UI / UX – ugh but I have such good branding strategy as well.. meh maybe I’ll just make two portfolio websites haha

israel

2016-09-22 18:14

@tyler: yeah that may be a good idea specially if marketing is an area you’re interested.

gregor

2016-09-22 18:14

@gregor pinned a message to this channel.

lou

2016-09-22 18:15

@swishie find an area of UX that you LOVE it’s a long career you need to love it :slightly_smiling_face: Never be generic if you can help it. EG. Interaction design is a fascinating career if you specialise you can also command higher salaries :slightly_smiling_face:

tyler

2016-09-22 18:16

@lou would you have better chances of getting work if your a specialist? or a generalist?

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:16

@anne-dougherty pinned a message to this channel.

swishie

2016-09-22 18:17

thank you @lou

lou

2016-09-22 18:17

@swishie Behance is Ok as long as you include annotations on your design about how the design was informed, what research did you do, who was it for? how does the interaction actually work… included detail it’s all about the details. That will make you stand as an ideal candidate inderstandingthe process involved in UCD.

lou

2016-09-22 18:17

@israel “as as UX looking to hire other UX. Designers whenever we get portfolios for evaluation we look at getting insights of your UX process as quick as possible since we don’t have a lot of time to search for that info. If I don’t see that I’ll move to the next one. I click on your pieces but didn’t see any info that would give me insights to your process. Maybe I missed it… which that should give you some UX info.”

brennan

2016-09-22 18:18

@lou – can we se your portfolio and case studies? Do you have a link?

brockawesome

2016-09-22 18:19

I have just jumped into UX in the last year and have been going back through my older branding and illustration work to document my process. i’m not a front end programmer by any means and have been using Behance to showcase my work, but It doesn’t quite shine. Are there any tips you can give on where to start to learn HTML/CSS as it pertains to creating a portfolio? I plan on designing it from the ground up but I’m lost when it comes to coding my designs after they are finished. check out http://brockbeuch.com and let me know what you think.

lou

2016-09-22 18:19

@israel the clients I work with have confidentiality agreements in place. I password protect my work for privacy reasons. Saying that – if the project is live I will share the password with potential clients IF they are looking for a Lead UX who specializes in ecommerce.

lou

2016-09-22 18:20

@gregor “I was hoping to ask louise about ideas for promoting a portfolio better (than I am now).”

hawk

2016-09-22 18:21

@brockawesome Hey Brock. I’ve banned @lou from looking at any portfolios in this session due to time constraints :wink: Post it up here for future review: http://community.uxmastery.com/t/portfolio-reviews-from-louises-ama-session/2026/3

lynne

2016-09-22 18:22

@lou: what are your thoughts on including work which is not strictly UX, but which demonstrates related skills in your portfolio? (e.g. I did design and prototyping as an engineer)

claraearendil

2016-09-22 18:23

@brockawesome you can check http://codeacademy.com and the’re several other resources/tutorials online where you can learn HTML&CSS

lou

2016-09-22 18:23

@gregor I would make as many friends in the industry as humanly possible with out becoming a stalker :slightly_smiling_face: People generally hire YOU and your great personality — over your portfolio. You can have an AMAZING portfolio, but if you are difficult to work or have poor social skills…. they are not going to hire you. The best jobs I’ve ever had have been through referral and my portfolio was a secondary concern.

kavini

2016-09-22 18:23

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

grosenhan

2016-09-22 18:23

I am currently a digital designer, meaning I do mostly web design but in the past year at my job I have been working a bit in UX and Front end dev. I realized that I want to focus more on UX but don’t want to step backwards in my career. How can I go about marketing myself as a UX person when 90% of my work is Design and on many of those projects I didn’t do Ux on?

lou

2016-09-22 18:23

@anne-dougherty “A general portfolio structure question: Is it better to show deliverables (e.g. designs, content inventories, etc) or process (e.g. here is what I/we did to get to where we ended up)?”

gregor

2016-09-22 18:24

@lou Thank you!

brockawesome

2016-09-22 18:25

I have just jumped into UX in the last year and have been going back through my older branding and illustration work to document my process. i’m not a front end programmer by any means and have been using Behance to showcase my work, but It doesn’t quite shine. Are there any tips you can give on where to start to learn HTML/CSS as it pertains to creating a portfolio? I plan on designing it from the ground up but I’m lost when it comes to coding my designs after they are finished.

desertcoder

2016-09-22 18:25

I’ve heard there are portfolio-designed websites where users can drag and drop content. I’ve also heard of numerous disadvantages to such websites (i.e. difficult to customize). Thoughts?

lou

2016-09-22 18:26

@anne-dougherty Always show your deliverables — as part of your design process. You might like to use a method I use called the STAR method…. S=start what you did at start of a project. T=tasks, what were they how were they defined. A= Audience who are they. R=Results what were they… if you can use that as your framework during an interview combined with your deliverables you will have nailed it!

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:26

@brockawesome Udemy has a couple of good, free HTML courses. Also check out CodeAcademy if you’re a learn-by-doing kind of person.

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:26

@lou Thank you!

lou

2016-09-22 18:27

@anne-dougherty welcome!

lou

2016-09-22 18:27

@ux_dude Question: For someone switching from a related career (me: front-end developer). How many UX projects should you have in your portfolio? How much of the UX process should you show?

crystal

2016-09-22 18:28

@crystal pinned a message to this channel.

gregor

2016-09-22 18:29

@brockawesome I always encourage people to learn coding, but at the same time wouldn’t want the time it takes to learn it to slow you down from getting your portfolio out there. Since so much of UX involves collaboration, why not hook up/coordinate with someone who can code your site design for you…. maybe work out some kind of bartering where you can help them out in return?

israel

2016-09-22 18:30

@lou: yes we have some candidates that have work under NDAs but you can create a fake project that showcases your process and skill. I think that’s something a lot of people asks. You don’t need real projects to put on your portfolio if you don’t have the experience or you can’t show them because if NDAs. Just Taylor the portfolio for the job you want. Just my two cents :grinning:

lou

2016-09-22 18:30

@ux_dude Answer: 3 really great ones based on what your client is focused on – so tailor your portfolio for them. If you are going in on a cold “pitch” you’ve never met them before you need to do your homework before hand and tailor your interview to their needs. Every job I ever interviewd for I’ve literally had to tailor my portfolio for. That detail really get you great clients and work in the end. It’s hard work but worth the effort!

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:31

@anne-dougherty pinned a message to this channel.

lou

2016-09-22 18:31

@jeanna Question: any advice for how to present a portfolio when someone asks to see your “thought process” and not just artifacts?

uxrose

2016-09-22 18:33

@lou Going off of what you said about the STAR approach. What types of results would you show on your portfolio if you were doing a personal side project?

claraearendil

2016-09-22 18:33

@lou @ux_dude what if you don’t have so many projects, just 1 or 2… seems difficult to “tailor” your portfolio when you’re starting

lou

2016-09-22 18:34

@jeanna answer: yes take photos of everything you worked on on the project and host them on a web page – even take the sketches with you, take videos of any interaction design and host them within the web page in a case study/webpage. Include the STAR framework above! Good luck I can’t wait to hear how you get on!

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:35

@lou what to do if you only have done personal UX work and don’t have any client work? Does it matter?

lou

2016-09-22 18:36

@sonia2016 does your previous employer have a website? If so go back to them and ask if you could job shadow the development team. You need to focus on “warm” leads peoepl you know or friends on colleagues. I want you to get on LinkedIn and create a great profile! Follow your fav. design companies, find out who works there, intro yourself, be interested and you will get there :slightly_smiling_face:

jeanna

2016-09-22 18:37

@lou thanks for the recommendations – I’ve included photos and schematics as well as wireframes but have had several people ask to see my notebooks to see how I arrived at design…

gregor

2016-09-22 18:38

@israel maybe it’s just semantics I’m taking issue with, but ALL projects are “real projects” if you’re putting in the work on them, whether they’re personal (what I assume you mean by “fake”) or for a client. Just my two cents! :sunglasses:

lou

2016-09-22 18:38

BTW Everyone who makes it to the end of this AMA gets a link to my first design contract proposal that got me my first design contract worth $12K. As a gift to say thank you for being patient!

sonia2016

2016-09-22 18:38

@lou I am currently not work and my previous employer was a temp agency. I have worked in hospitals for the most part as a social worker. I am going to try and ad more projects to my portfolio and try to do a case study.

lou

2016-09-22 18:39

@nwhysel Question….Does that mean different portfolio for different prospective employer?

hawk

2016-09-22 18:40

@plath.ma You’re in. :slightly_smiling_face: It’s a text chat session. If you have a question, ask away. You can read back through the transcript at your leisure

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:41

Ah, got it, thanks!

amirasallam

2016-09-22 18:42

@lou can we have access to your portfolio ? for inspiration and reference ?

graeme

2016-09-22 18:42

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

wendy

2016-09-22 18:42

@lou would learning front end development and graphic design increase the chances of getting a junior UX design role for someone coming from a different career? (Psychotherapy)

lou

2016-09-22 18:42

@nwhysel answer: 1. find out what problem you will be solving for your employer…2. create three case studies in your portfolio that address that need (you might be focused on ecommerce, publishing or finance) 3. when you get to the interview you want to be super specific about how the results you got in a previous – and similar job – will help you get results for them too. Does that help?

israel

2016-09-22 18:43

@gregor: yes I agree all projects are real projects since you are taking the time to do it. What I meant is if you haven’t work for a lot of clients and don’t have a variety of projects to show you can create your own. So maybe you do an e-commerce project or an app project and show how do you apply your knowledge in those areas.

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:43

I’d like to know how best to include previous relevant experience (in my case graphic design) in your portfolio?

lou

2016-09-22 18:43

@tyler question: would you have better chances of getting work if your a specialist? or a generalist?

nwhysel

2016-09-22 18:44

@lou: yes. I guess also knowing when to drop pieces that no longer address current problems.

sonia2016

2016-09-22 18:45

@wendy we are in the same boat, I come from a social work background. It is a hard transition. Some times I question myself about transitioning because I dont want to fail.

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:45

@lou Also – how do you deal with a project that never got finished? I.e. I worked on a project pro bono just to get something in my portfolio. The client decided they didn’t have the money to get a custom design built, so went with (another) (cr*??^) template instead. What’s the best way of including that in your portfolio, in the absence of actual results??

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:46

@wendy I would learn front-end and graphic design on top of all the UX stuff you are learning, but it’s not a guarantee. I’m a front-end developer with over 10 years experience and I’m having a tough time landing a UX job right now.

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:46

@sonia2016 don’t be afraid to fail :slightly_smiling_face:

lou

2016-09-22 18:46

@tyler answer: If you specialise in you’ll always be in demand, it also makes it easier to sell your services. :slightly_smiling_face:

lou

2016-09-22 18:47

@brennan question: can we se your portfolio and case studies? Do you have a link?

wendy

2016-09-22 18:47

@sonia2016 yes it is a difficult transition looking at job descriptions wanting a unicorn

wendy

2016-09-22 18:48

@uxdude yes I meant front end development and graphic design on top of the HCD UX process

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 18:48

@wendy @sonia2016 I saw this in a job description today: – Ability to solve all sorts of design challenges with creativity, efficiency and precision; *a full stack designer (interaction, usability, graphic design, HTML5, CSS3 and front-end development).*

Full stack designer = :unicorn_face:

lou

2016-09-22 18:49

@brennan answer: I’m running a free webinar later this evening and I’ll be running through the http://greyhound.com case study if anyone is interested in the frameowrk I use and how I use it to persuade clients to hire me. Let me know if you want to attned?

pesenson

2016-09-22 18:49

@sonia2016 @wendy …you may want to do UX Design in particular, but UX Research is also a great path (and specialization) that wouldn’t require coding or graphic design skills. It’s more about psychology, sociology, and interviewing users and working closely with designers –might be a great way to reframe social work too

desertcoder

2016-09-22 18:49

What type of formula do you use to equate portfolio value = contract price? Meaning, how do you negotiate your contract based on what a potential client sees in your portfolio?

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:49

@lou – I’d like to attend the webinar please!

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:49

@anne-dougherty I have all those requirements! :disappointed:

tyler

2016-09-22 18:50

@lou how does having graphic design skills tie into a UX design position?

brennan

2016-09-22 18:50

@lou – I would love an invite to the seminar but hopefully not to late since I am in Boulder CO.

ux_dude

2016-09-22 18:51

@tyler to design flashy wireframes maybe? A lot of companies confuse UI and UX.

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:51

@tyler – creating wireframes based on the user research!

paapoo

2016-09-22 18:51

How do we sign up to attend your web inarticulate today?

tyler

2016-09-22 18:51

@plath.ma isn’t that more of a UI job then?

wendy

2016-09-22 18:51

@pesenson yes, I have looked into it. My impression so far is that the job descriptions/ requirements even for a research assistant are a bit much (years of qualitative and quantitative research experience in tech industry)

gregor

2016-09-22 18:52

@wendy I would just add to what’s been said that “learning” front-end and graphic design should be interpreted as at least having a good understanding of these so that you can work with others who do these. UX is about collaboration, and I don’t think you need to master these other areas to become successful in your own area of UX.

rvaelle

2016-09-22 18:52

@lou — I’d like to attend your webinar.

sonia2016

2016-09-22 18:52

@pesenson I will look more into UX Research to get my foot in the door some where. My only thing is I dont want to be put in a box. Once I have enough experience , I want to focus on the other part of UX

hawk

2016-09-22 18:52

We have 5 mins left and more than 5 mins of q’s queued, so I’m going to put a lid on them now.
If you have further questions, please post them here http://community.uxmastery.com/t/portfolio-reviews-from-louises-ama-session/2026/4

lou

2016-09-22 18:52

@lynne answer: prototyping is a HOT UX topic. Those skill you have developed and UCD thinking are very valuable to potential employees, as long as you can prove the results you got – in an interview situation and use the STAR method for example, you could persuade a team to hire you. Get creative :slightly_smiling_face:

plath.ma

2016-09-22 18:52

@tyler – no, creating the wireframes is putting together the structure of the website (which page leads to which page, user flow, etc) UI is just the pretty colours and graphics on top (=skin )

brennan

2016-09-22 18:53

@hawk thought the seminar was in this channel tonight, misunderstood

hawk

2016-09-22 18:54

Also respectfully ask that you hold off on the side convos for the last 5 mins so Lou can talk

lou

2016-09-22 18:54

@brockawesome I host my work on WP. You don’t need a fancy site. Create case studies and share them on your site, document everything share it with your network. I hope that helps!

brennan

2016-09-22 18:54

Thanks for sharing your time and experience today @lou

lou

2016-09-22 18:55

@desertcoder question: I’ve heard there are portfolio-designed websites where users can drag and drop content. I’ve also heard of numerous disadvantages to such websites (i.e. difficult to customize). Thoughts?

rvaelle

2016-09-22 18:55

@lou Thanks for providing tangible solutions to questions today.

lou

2016-09-22 18:58

@desertcoder answer: so I use leadpages for certain content pages on my site because it’s very simple to use (drag and drop) And WP “pages” to build my case studies. You can mix the two. Your case study should be a simple narrative, and your live work the fancy stuff that you can show in conjunction with your thoughts process, sketches, and the STAR method. I hope that helps you?

lou

2016-09-22 18:58

@rvaelle thanks!

crystal

2016-09-22 18:59

@lou Also, thanks for reposting the questions you were about to answer. It made it much easier to follow along

plath.ma

2016-09-22 19:00

@lou thanks for sharing your expertise with us tonight, much appreciated!

hawk

2016-09-22 19:00

If you haven’t been to one of these sessions before, I leave the channel open so you can read back through, and I also post the transcript up on http://uxmastery.com

hawk

2016-09-22 19:00

Also, don’t forget that you can continue the discussion at http://community.uxmastery.com

lou

2016-09-22 19:00

@plath.ma lovely to see you here! Thanks for being here :slightly_smiling_face:

hawk

2016-09-22 19:01

But wait! Lou has an amazing offer for you all…

gregor

2016-09-22 19:02

@gregor pinned a message to this channel.

nwhysel

2016-09-22 19:02

Thanks, @lou!

kailualisa

2016-09-22 19:02

Thank you, @lou

lou

2016-09-22 19:03

Thanks for being so patient! I’ve got the exact and confidential pitch and $12,500 contract outline that got me my 1st $12K client… here goes… https://upskillmastery.leadpages.co/12k-design-contract/

gregor

2016-09-22 19:03

@lou Thank you for this, and for your great advice!

sonia2016

2016-09-22 19:03

@lou Thankyou

lou

2016-09-22 19:04

It’s also includes a step by step guide on How to Get Your first Design Client – happy pitching everyone :slightly_smiling_face:

lou

2016-09-22 19:05

nice one @gregor @sonia2016 @kailualisa @crystal

hawk

2016-09-22 19:06

Thanks all for joining us today. It’s been a crazy busy session :slightly_smiling_face:

hawk

2016-09-22 19:06

But mostly, thanks so much @lou for your time. You’re a star.

anne-dougherty

2016-09-22 19:06

Thank you for hosting @hawk !

lynne

2016-09-22 19:06

Thanks @lou and @hawk for organising.

mattsmith

2016-09-22 19:07

thanks!

lou

2016-09-22 19:07

@hawk thanks for being amazing :slightly_smiling_face:

brennan

2016-09-22 19:07

@hawk do you have any additional info on the seminar mentioned?

hawk

2016-09-22 19:08

@brennan You’ll have to get that from Lou. It’s not a UXMastery session :slightly_smiling_face:

brennan

2016-09-22 19:08

Great, thanks @hawk

lou

2016-09-22 19:08

@hawk am I ok to link to the free webinar here?

hawk

2016-09-22 19:09

yup, no probs

lou

2016-09-22 19:09

Persuasive Portfolio Free Webinar happening LIVE here at 8.30pm London time https://www.facebook.com/UpSkillMastery/

brennan

2016-09-22 19:10

Awesome, thanks again @lou

hawk

2016-09-22 19:10

(that’s in 20 mins)

lou

2016-09-22 19:10

@brennan no worries I hope you can make it.

lou

2016-09-22 19:11

@hawk thank you! :slightly_smiling_face:

claraearendil

2016-09-22 19:12

@lou is it open or do we need to sign in?

lou

2016-09-22 19:14

@claraearendil you need to sign into facebook and then like the page as far as know when I’ll show up in video in the news feed.

lou

2016-09-22 19:15

@claraearendil See you there! you can also try this if you don’t use facebook. https://zoom.us/j/518784761 (I’ll be there at 8.30pm) in 15 minutes. See you there!

sharonhsiao

2016-09-22 19:17

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

claraearendil

2016-09-22 19:36

thanks!!

josesolano

2016-09-22 20:34

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

chrisar

2016-09-22 20:53

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

mnmustafa

2016-09-23 00:05

has joined #ask-louise-campbell

The post Transcript: “I teach UXers how to build a persuasive portfolio : Ask Me Anything.” appeared first on UX Mastery.

They range from debates over whether or not portfolios are important, to requests for feedback on portfolios-in-progress, and most frequently – how to find appropriate projects when you’re yet to get a job.

The general consensus is that a portfolio does help in the quest for that elusive first (and even second or third) job, but it’s important to remember that the purpose of the document isn’t to demonstrate your amazing visual design skills – the UX portfolio is all about documenting your process.

Building a portfolio can be daunting if you’re relatively new on the UX scene, so a while back I went hunting for examples that I think are inspiring for one reason or another. Some of those sites are now gone, so I’ve recently been on a new hunt – here are some updated examples that I love.

Every one of these UX portfolios does something very well, and it’s definitely an inspiring collection.

Here they are, in no particular order. Enjoy.

1. Bret Victor

This is a truly beautiful piece of the internet. Bret is a storyteller and a self-professed “purveyor of impossible dreams” and those traits are communicated perfectly through his portfolio. The site feels like a game, full of little gems of enjoyable reading, but most importantly, he communicates his design process in a comprehensive and easy to follow way.

2. Simon Pan

I love the simplicity of the design of this site, but more importantly look at these case studies! Simon’s portfolio takes the most comprehensively catalogued case studies award, hands down. Add to that some beautiful imagery and he’s onto a winning formula. I read this portfolio from end to end, just for pure enjoyment. It’s no wonder he’s been snapped up by Uber.

3. Frances Tung

Frances’ fun, magazine/blog style approach to her portfolio adds delight to the experience, but it’s the way she crafts her case-studies as stories that had me hooked. Her processes are laid out clearly and are well supported by imagery, and she injects just the right amount of personality into the portfolio.

4. Justin Edmund

Justin’s portfolio is clean and unassuming. It isn’t flashy because it’s all about showcasing his work. Case studies are carefully mapped out from inception, through philosophy and research, to execution. The process that Justin follows is described in depth and is backed up with great examples of imagery, giving a clear insight into the way he works.

5. Yitong Zhang

What makes Yitong’s portfolio unique is the way he tells a story. From his personal journey to his work, the communication is structured and easy to follow. When it comes to documenting his projects, I particularly like the way he progresses in a linear fashion from the initial challenge, through his process, culminating finally in learnings.

6. Anthony Anderson

Another example of an interesting portfolio, and this is how you document a UX process. Anthony’s site is a little confusing and hard to navigate at times, but once you get down to the documentation of his case studies, it’s pure gold. I particularly love the cute way the processes are annotated.

7. John Ellison

John does a fantastic job of clearly documenting the problems, the processes and the outcomes in his portfolio. Quantifying specific outcomes adds weight and value to the projects, and the detail that he goes into with each case study is epic. When I wrote this article the first time I felt that the only thing lacking was some sketches, which have now been added.

8. Gregor Kalfas

This particular example is close to my heart because Gregor is a member of our UX Mastery community and his portfolio came to my attention when he asked for a review. It’s fair to say, there isn’t much to criticise! Exploring this site is like spending time at a fun park – it’s absolutely delightful.

9. Christina Richardson

Christina’s portfolio is another that I came across by way of a community review request. I was immediately endeared by the way she tells her personal story just as one would document a design process. It’s the little things that make it stand out from the crowd.

So there you go. I hope this has left you feeling inspired.

If you’re struggling to find appropriate projects to include in your portfolio, or you need some tips about making yours stand out from the crowd, join our upcoming session on creating persuasive portfolios.

The post 9 Inspiring UX Portfolios appeared first on UX Mastery.

Perhaps the most frequently asked question is how to find projects or case studies to build a portfolio if you don’t have a job. If that’s you – you’re in luck.

We’re pleased to announce that career coach Louise Campbell will be next up in our Slack channel, and these are the kinds of questions that she is going to be answering.

If you need advice on finding appropriate projects, documenting case studies, or building a more persuasive portfolio, don’t miss this free session.

The Details

• Where: Our dedicated ‘Ask Louise’ Slack channel.
• When: 11am Thursday 22 September PDT or 4am Friday 23 September AEST
  (or find out what time that is for you)

Meet Louise Campbell

Louise Campbell is a Lead UX Design consultant for giant eCommerce companies. She started out at 19 as a junior print designer for Littlewoods Home Shopping Group. Over the last 15 years has worked her way up to consulting for luxury e-commerce companies including Net-a-porter.com, MrPorter.com, The Body Shop, Benna.co.uk, and travel giant Greyhound.com.

Louise is also a career transition coach for ambitious graphic designers who want to make it big in UXD. She teaches a free weekly mini-class to show you ‘How to Create a Persuasive Portfolio’ at UpSkillMastery.com.

How to Ask Your Questions

If you can’t make the live session but have questions, we’d love to collect them ahead of time and we’ll ask Louise on your behalf. You can submit your questions here. We’ll publish the responses (along with the full transcript) in the days following the session.

How does Ask Me Anything work?

These sessions run for approximately an hour and best of all, they don’t cost a cent. We run them in our dedicated public Slack channel. That means that there is no audio or video, but a full transcript will be posted up on here in the days following the session.

The post “I teach UXers how to create a persuasive portfolio” : Ask me Anything. appeared first on UX Mastery.

Right now it’s an exciting time to be a UX professional and it’s becoming a more accepted practice at companies all over the world, but before you look for a new UX job, let me ask you this:

“Is your UX portfolio up to par?”

Perhaps you have a portfolio, but it’s out-dated, embarrassing to show and you can’t motivate yourself to redo it. If you’re suffering from “portfolio creator’s block,” there are a few easy-to-remember steps you can take to jump over this hurdle and hopefully start you on a path for your next great UX job!

Let it go

The most important concept to keep in mind is to let things go.

As designers, we often get attached to our work because we put a lot of time, energy and creativity into it. This also goes for portfolios because they are very personal to us. There’s also a lot of pressure to have them reflect our skills and talents, so we think they have to be perfect. However, being this attached is one of the biggest hurdles that prevent us from actually creating our portfolios. So while creating your portfolio, tell yourself, “I will not get attached to my work.” Write it on a sticky note and make it your mantra as you work on your portfolio.

Also remind yourself that you constantly iterate upon ideas for work projects, so designing and creating your portfolio should be an iterative process, too.

UX your portfolio

While your portfolio is one of your most personal projects, it’s just that – a project. Leverage your UX skills to conceive, sketch, wireframe, and design your portfolio. In your portfolio, include any relevant projects that show your process from start to finish. UX portfolio pieces should show the project’s challenges and the thought process behind the solutions. The thinking behind a project’s work isn’t always evident in the final product, so include any whiteboard sketches, drawings or wireframes that you’ve created along the way.

When determining how many pieces to put in your portfolio, consider how busy hiring managers are and how many other portfolios they’re skimming. When screening for candidates, most recruiters and hiring managers are pouring through resumes and quickly glance through portfolios. Make sure you only include your BEST work and that each piece can strongly convey your skills alone – just in case the reviewer only has time to look at one piece.

Create your portfolio in something that works for you

There are countless ways people can create portfolios using tools including:

• content management system like WordPress;
• online services like Dribbble or Behance;
• Keynote, or coding it from scratch.

Regardless of how everyone else is doing it, choose an option that’s best for you. Use a tool that you’re comfortable with and one that works within your timeframe. If you’re rusty on coding, creating a site from scratch isn’t the best option. Creating a portfolio is already enough work, so avoid adding more to your plate. There’s nothing wrong with creating a PowerPoint or PDF version of your portfolio and posting it on a service like Speaker Deck.

Test and iterate

Like any UX project, you should test it early and often. Run your concepts, ideas, and first iterations by your friends, especially if they are recruiters or usability professionals. While these individuals can provide valuable feedback, it’s even more valuable that you actually listen to the feedback. It might be hard to hear what they have to say, but it’s to improve your portfolio. And don’t forget, your mantra is, “I will not get attached to my work.”

Do yourself a favour

Following these easy-to-remember steps can help you get over portfolio creator’s block, but it’s not to say that creating your portfolio will be smooth sailing. As with any project, it takes a lot of effort, but by leveraging your skills, not getting attached to your work and using what works best for you, things should be more manageable. And once you’re done creating your portfolio and scoring your next awesome UX job, do yourself the biggest favour possible. Maintain it. Making small tweaks, swapping one project out for another, and so on is much easier to do than completely overhauling your portfolio.

The post How to Overcome Portfolio Creator’s Block appeared first on UX Mastery.

If you build a truly great community, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m proud to say that the UX Mastery community is panning out to be one of the truly great ones, and here is an example of why.

Just over a month ago, a new member who goes by the name of Noquarter signed up. He had an idea, and in doing so, he became one of my favourite community members of all time.

I have an idea. I want to redo my portfolio and I thought this would be a good opportunity to use you guys as my team.

In essence, Noquarter’s idea was to run a UX project that involved the UX Mastery Community as collaborative team members. The project? To create a great UX portfolio for himself. In Luke’s words “UX work experience FTW!”

Stage 1: Strategy – Project: Portfolio – Kickoff meeting

We began with a planning meeting. Using a 1000-foot document we established the structure of the project by answering these questions:

1. What are we hoping to achieve?
2. How will we measure success?
3. Who is the audience?
4. Who are the SME’s?
5. What personas should we use?
6. Who are the stakeholders?
7. Do we have a copywriter?
8. Who can help facilitate user testing?
9. What is the scope of the project?

Stage 2: Research – Project: Portfolio

Once we had established some clear goals and key responsibilities, we moved onto the research stage. This meant creating some personas (in this case modelled on UX recruiters and HR personnel), conducting stakeholder and user interviews, and competitive analysis.

Noquarter surveyed a group of UX recruiters and came back with some useful data, along with some people willing to be interviewed over Skype. Competitive research was conducted using data that I had collected for an article that I wrote last year.

At this stage our 1000-foot document looked like this.

Stage 3: User Testing – Project: Portfolio

This is where we’re at. We need to begin by writing a usability testing script, which will be used to conduct a dry-run test on project collaborators. We’ll then use feedback from the team to tweak it for user testing with the recruiter volunteers established in Stage 2.

Would you like to be a part of our project?

In my opinion, this use of the community is genius. Noquarter is getting experience in following a user-centred process, he’s providing opportunities for all members to collaborate and learn from each other, and obviously the final result is a slick new portfolio for Noquarter. Win/win/win!

As a result, we would love to have more people join in. This is a unique opportunity to be involved in a project with a group of UX professionals who have a wealth of different backgrounds and experiences. Even better … it’s fun.

If you would like to take part, you can join our community here and get stuck in here.

We’re looking forward to seeing you.

The post A Collaborative UX Project: The Power of Community appeared first on UX Mastery.

In case you missed something, here’s a summary of 10 of our career-related resources we’ve published:

1. 10 Steps to a Perfect Portfolio. Luke takes us though some practical tips for the perfect UX portfolio.
2. Walk a Mile in your Interviewer’s Shoes. Kimberley demonstrates how you can tap into the skill of empathy to ace your next job interview.
3. 5 Ways to Stand Out When Applying for a UX Job. Troy Parke tells us what employers are looking for in a UXer during the hiring process.
4. Podcast—How to get an Awesome UX Job. Patrick Neeman talks about how to break into UX, create a portfolio, and manage your career.
5. UX Degrees: a global list of academic degrees being offered in fields related to UX.
6. Ask the UXperts—Getting Started in UX with Jodie Moule. You want UX? Jodie Moule answers the most diverse bunch of UX questions we’ve seen!
7. Review: Career Mind Mastery—Learn How to Get your Dream Job. Kimberley learns how to shift her mindset to land that coveted position.
8. UX is a Career. UX is many things—an industry, a philosophy, a process … but it’s also a career that needs to be nurtured.
9. Review: You’re Hired! How to Get a Job in Product Management. Sarah gets stuck into how to get a job in product management.
10. UX Careers Forum. The place to ask your questions on how to launch, grow, and manage your career as a UX designer.

Which of these posts resonated most with you? What type of career resources or information would you like to see in the future?

The post 10 Killer Resources to Boost your UX Career appeared first on UX Mastery.

We work in a world of field recordings, paper scribblings and Excel spreadsheets. We design for good experiences and thus have critical input into the end results, but we don’t necessarily create the final visuals.

So what do we do when a prospective employer asks to see a portfolio?

Here are ten steps that will help build a UX portfolio that gets you through to an interview.

1. Don’t pretend to be a visual designer (if you’re not)

UX portfolios should be documents expressing the story you want to tell, project research insights and your design problem-solving abilities. Having competent visual communication skills will certainly give you additional credibility, but don’t confuse this with your “design-behind-the-visuals” UX role.

UXers are held under a critical microscope for many ‘soft’ skills or process-related abilities— communication, collaboration, analytical thinking, active listening, persuasion, planning—however, these skills don’t necessarily speak for themselves in the final results. If you focus primarily on visual design it will be difficult to convince people of these other skills, so don’t misrepresent yourself.

2. Find your inner T-shaped renaissance professional

It’s tempting to be competitive by appearing to be good at everything, but it can be refreshing to meet a jobseeker who doesn’t pretend to be a UX ‘unicorn’. Be upfront about your particular skills and use your process and experience to communicate clearly how you work.

The ‘T-shaped professional’ concept implies that there are certain skills you must have some understanding of to call yourself a UXer (the crossbar), and other skills that you can specialise in and have a deeper understanding about (the stem). You should aim to use your generalist skills to learn on the job and develop additional deep skills.

To do this in your portfolio, pay attention to:

• Showing your level of experience; this is more about the types of projects you’ve worked on and your roles within these projects, and less about the number of years or projects you’ve worked;
• Illustrating the particular skills you’ll be bringing to a project, especially your abilities to derive insights from research and conduct successful problem solving;
• Representing the quality of your UX work—the experiences you’ve fostered in users, innovations you’ve made, the mature design restraint you’ve shown in implementing proven interactions rather than the latest fads; and
• Depicting your work style and personality, i.e. your typical design process and artefacts from this and other techniques you draw on, showing details about exactly what that looks like.

3. Speak to the locals in their own language

Understanding who you’re presenting your folio to, and therefore what they’re looking for, is absolutely critical.

Recruiters, employers, UX leads, project managers, developers and creative directors each have their own priorities and interests that will affect their selection agendas. Even the type of company will make a significant difference. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said:

“Everyone hears only what (s)he understands.”

Lynn Teo‘s excellent presentation ‘Portfolios Matter’ identifies what certain roles look for in a UX interview:

• UX Lead: your methods, independence, team player, work quality.
• Project Manager: process, on time, on-budget, communication skills.
• Front-end developer: prototyping skills, iterative design, agile.
• Creative director: conceptual thought, problem statement, effectiveness of solution.

Trying to communicate everything to everyone is going to be pretty difficult, so pick the most concise approach for your audience and stick to it. If your prospective employer hasn’t nailed the job requirements, you may also need to help them unpack these. The list above gives you something to work from.

4. Take a modular approach

Include and exclude projects based on who you’re showing your folio to, and communicate quality, not quantity.

I have a full master copy of my portfolio in Indesign, and as a printed A3 document in plastic sleeves. This makes it easy to shuffle the pages or leave some out depending on who I’m showing it to. I sometimes show my full folio once I’m asked in for a detailed interview, or when actually working with colleagues on a project.

5. Decide how you’ll handle NDA work

It may seem a silly thing to say in an article about portfolios, but you’ll need to show some examples your work. How you do this will depend on the following:

1. Work protected by a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) should stay confidential, both because you’re legally obliged and because you otherwise risk your reputation. If you divulge the secrets of a previous employer the person wanting to hire you will assume you’ll betray their trust too.
2. But put yourself in the shoes of your potential employer. Would you really hire someone without any evidence of their skills, process and experience? That’s an unjustifiable risk even for referred or recommended candidates.

So what should you actually show?

Troy Parke has good advice in his article The UX Portfolio: Top 10 Questions for UX, UI & Visual Designers:

Interviewers genuinely want to see your work, but understand confidentiality. Allude to your experience on NDA work with a list of project clients instead of showing the actual work. This way you get the value of having worked on a brand without betraying their confidence.

And if you’re still stuck, then consider anonymising the work by rebranding and obfuscating any identifying content.

6. Include hypothetical projects in your UX portfolio

One of the biggest hurdles for new UXers is finding enough good material for their portfolio. Often there will be large gaps where you might have an understanding but no work to prove it. In these cases I recommend plugging any critical gaps with made-up work. Sounds dodgy? Not really.

You’re being hired for your potential, not because you’ve done great work in the past. Show your potential any way you can. You can demonstrate it by donating your time to a local not-for-profit or friend’s business, or you can simply make up case studies of what you might have done if a particular company had hired you. This allows you to gain some experience and build your portfolio, and most importantly it gives you artefacts to use when discussing your skills and process.

7. … but stay real

Please don’t pass hypothetical work off as real work, and do replace those artefacts with actual project work as soon as you can. In the future, when you have more experience, you’ll do well to remember that you’re still only being hired for your potential – so don’t rest on your laurels just because you have some good work under your belt!

Honesty and a personal approach will go a long, long way to helping your prospective employer get to know you. Reveal your work style and your process, and above all, don’t lie. This also includes being specific about your role in collaborative projects. Remember: the best way to differentiate yourself from the crowd is to let your unique self shine out.

8. Show your thought process

The difference between a UX portfolio and other visual portfolios is the importance of showing the journey that led to the final results, not the destination itself.

A good way to do this is to tell the story behind the project, your process of connecting research findings with new designs, and how you surmounted the various design challenges you came across. Like your maths teacher used to say: show your thinking. For example, link your insights from contextual enquiries to patterns you’ve found during affinity diagramming, and through to design concepts that arose from your consideration of personas or mental models. The connections don’t have to be innovative, or even always correct – showing your ability to learn from mistakes is a useful bonus.

9. Use the 60 second test

The initial stages of selection are pretty ruthless. A recruiter or employer may need to wade through dozens (or hundreds!) of portfolios and resumes. No wonder then that they often make decisions in under a minute. That’s 60 seconds you have to convince them that you’re worth a deeper look.

Make sure that you make it to the ‘yes’ pile by giving them a concise insight to your skills and style by remembering these tips:

• The medium is the message. Use your UX skills to make sure your most essential information is communicated clearly.
• Don’t rely on text descriptions to make your points. Use annotated diagrams, screenshots and images – images used in conjunction with limited text will be more efficient than only text or only images.
• Structure your document clearly, with sections, sub-headings and captions.
• Cut out everything that isn’t your best work, and try to avoid more than one example of each technique or approach
• Include a summary or content listing at the front or back, and if your portfolio is large, consider a mini-summary or content listing at the beginning of each section.
• Consider user-testing your portfolio with friends or family to make sure your points are coming across how you intend.

10. Don’t let your UX portfolio get lonely

Remember that your portfolio won’t reach its potential if it is left in isolation. For it to really work you should introduce it in person whenever possible, although many people find it useful to provide a downloadable version (perhaps PDF) on their folio website for hirers or recruiters that want to view it offline. Keeping a resume with your portfolio will also provide a concise record of your skills and experience. And make sure your LinkedIn profile stays up to date! Together these things are as much a personal chart of your professional development as a tool for getting new work.

Of the more than 170 portfolios I’ve looked through over the past few weeks, I’d suggest that less than 1 in every 10 was even close to achieving all of the above points. By following these steps, you’ll be taken seriously, rising quickly to the top of the ‘yes’ pile, and be well on your way to being asked in for an interview. Good luck!

Further reading:

• Lynn Teo’s very comprehensive advice about portfolios
• Troy Parke’s top 10 questions for UX, UI & visual designer portfolios
• Patrick Neeman’s Slideshare presentation on how to tell your story in a UX portfolio
• A job-matching service did an eye tracking study on how recruiters read resume information

The post 10 Steps To A Perfect UX Portfolio appeared first on UX Mastery.

Christine, an HR Administrator from Toronto, is looking to change careers and become a UX Designer. What she may lack in experience, she makes up for with enthusiasm, communication skills, and a good understanding of theory. She has a portfolio, built up from time she has volunteered to various projects, has found a mentor, and is actively networking to find suitable roles—including unpaid internships—but is still hitting hurdles. Christine opens up to Matt about the job application process, reflects on how the term “user experience” is often misunderstood by employers, and shares some of the frustrations she’s encountered.

Somebody give this girl a job. Seriously.

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Transcript

Christine: Hello?

Matt: Good morning Christine!

Christine: Good evening Matthew!

Matt: How are you?

Christine: I’m very well, thank you. How are you?

Matt: Fantastic. Thank you for taking some time to chat.

Christine: No, thank you so much. What time is it over there right now?

Matt: It’s 10.00 in the morning.

Christine: Oh, good. So it’s not too early.

Matt: No. I have my two-year-old daughter with me today. She’s just happily sitting on the couch watching a little bit of TV while Dad makes a phone call. So it’s all good …

Christine: Awesome!

Matt: You left an interesting comment on our blog recently, and I just wanted to chat to you about that, and hear a little bit more. So did you want to explain your experience? Feel free to omit any incriminating names!

Christine: OK. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote. It was a bit of a rant, right?

Matt: Yeah, you had an interview for an internship, and it didn’t quite work out as you were expecting it to.

Christine: How detailed did you want?

Matt: Give us the full back story! I think this is something that probably happens a lot, so I’m keen to pick apart what’s going on and what the issues are and how we can help other people in a similar situation.

Christine: OK, to start from the very beginning, I emailed this company. I was emailing a bunch of digital media companies—small web shops, even the really big ones. I was just emailing them, saying, “Hey, I really want a UX internship. I’m willing to work for free. If you need any assistance, with user testing, or small bits of wireframing here and there, I am here to offer you my services. I sent them my resume, I sent them my website.

And the woman actually replied back. A few of them did, actually. I got a handful of replies.

Matt: Sorry to butt in there—so you’re background is … have you just graduated from university, or do you have a bit of work experience?

Christine: No, I’ve been working in Human Resources since I graduated. I’ve been doing that for 3-4 years now, and I don’t like it! I’m thinking of a career change. And I’ve been diligently trying to get into UX since April. So it’s been a few months. And I feel like the more I read, the less I know. So I feel extremely green.

I have a mentor named Elisabeth Hubert, and she’s a UX designer in New York.

Matt: Ah, I’m a big fan of Lis’s writing.

Christine: Oh, yeah her blogs are awesome. She’s so down to earth. When you speak to her, she’s even more down to earth than on her blog.

Matt: She popped up as having followed me on Twitter the other day, and I tried not to get too excited about it, but it was a big moment for me, what can I say? Ha ha.

Christine: Well I actually told her that I was speaking with you. Because I was nervous, and I just wanted to share with her that you wanted to speak. And she said “I know UX Mastery. That’s really big for you!” And I was like, “Yeah, it’ll be a fun conversation.” And she said, “Yeah, just have fun with it.”

So I have a mentor now, and I’m reading books, and learning about UX. But she told me that the best way to learn is really on the job. Reading is a good support, but really I’m going to absorb way more information if I just start working in it. So that’s why I started to apply for internships, because I know the demand is there, and I know there’s a very little supply. So I did it, and I got a good response rate.

Anyhoo, so this one is actually the second digital media company to contact me. The first one didn’t work out, because it wasn’t really what I was looking for. No sorry, this is the third place—there were two other ones. One’s a big mobile shop in Toronto, but they wanted me to do recruiting as well. And I wasn’t really keen on doing 50% recruiting and 50% learning UX, cos I wanted to just jump right into the UX thing.

Matt: And are these internships advertised? Or is it just you being proactive and thinking, “I’d like to work for these guys, I’ll reach out to them” …?

Christine: Yeah! I’m in HR. Job postings are the tip of the iceberg for openings, and they’re the least effective way to apply for a job. So really: networking, and prioritising your networking is the best way, from my professional experience, to get a job. So I decided to do that and be proactive.

So there were no job postings whatsoever. And I made it super clear in my email that I was really looking for a UX internship—nothing more, nothing less.

So these guys call me up—and it’s the Vice President of Communications. So she’s not in design, and she doesn’t do any of the delivery stuff. She’s doing more on the marketing side. So I thought that was kind of interesting.

And she got a meeting together with me and the Director of User Experience. And this company’s another pretty well established shop in Toronto. They hosted the AndroidTO—the Android Toronto conference—last year, I think.

So I went in, and we just had a chat. He was a really nice guy, very casual. He didn’t actually look at any of my work before we spoke. I think he liked me, because he showed me around the office, and he seemed really keen on meeting up again. So he said he’d take a look at my work.

A week later I got an email with a test. They said “we want you to look at this brief—it’s a real client brief.” They made me sign a non-disclosure agreement, and they also omitted a lot of the confidential information. I looked over it—it was a Canadian Photograph Company. And the door was wide open for me to make any app I wanted based on it, or any sub-brand.

So in my mind, I still thought at this point that it was a UX position. So 90% of my efforts were in the strategy, concept and wireframing stages. 90%! And 50% of that was up to the concept. For the presentation, they gave me a list. They told me you need to provide your concept, your wireframes, and a few pages to showcase your user interface design skills.

So I spent one day doing the UI. Because in my mind, this position wasn’t for a visual designer. It’s not my strength, it’s certainly not my education, even though I do know how to use Photoshop, and I am artistic by nature. So I spent one day on UI, and the rest of the week doing everything else.

Matt: And this is for an unpaid position?

Christine: Yeah.

Matt: Just checking!

Christine: Yup! So the whole time I was thinking, “this is quite a lot of work for a UX internship, but it’s going to be worth it!” So I’m busting my butt, seven days straight, for hours and hours. I made an entire mobile app. It’s 100% interactive, on Axure. And I made the UI, and a Powerpoint presentation, 70% of which was describing my process—What’s the business strategy? What are the user goals? Really walking them through how I came up with the concept, so that when I did show them the wireframe, they would see why I did what I did.

So half way through the presentation, I’m seeing that the Director of UX is looking a little impatient. I get the sense that he really just wants me to jump to the UI. Because the minute I said, “OK, now I’m going to show you my UI,” he got really, really excited.

And I showed it to him, and he said, “Oh, that’s not really showcasing your visual design skills.” And I was like, “Visual design skills? Sorry, I thought this was for a UX internship.” And he said, “No, it’s for a user interface designer position.”

I was like, “Oh my god, I have no experience. Why are you interviewing me for a position that requires experience?” And the VP of Communications was in the room. Three other designers from the company were there. And it was so uncomfortable, because I got really panicky at that point. He and the VP of Communications had a discussion right in front of me, where they basically were saying, “I think we’ve been having miscommunications, because this isn’t the first time a candidate has misunderstood the role.” And at that point, I thought, you know what? I’m just going to speak my mind. And I told the UX Director, “In my mind I don’t think UX is just about visual design. It’s definitely something I can pick up, but I really want to go deep into all the processes that come before then, because you can have a dedicated visual designer on your team to make it look pretty, but everything that happens before that point, that’s where the real thinking happens. That’s where 90% of the problems are going to be nipped in the bud. And visual design is kind of where you finalise everything.

So I told him that, and I gave him my 2c. And I really did want to tell him, “You know, you of all people should understand just how critical and how crucial those steps are, and not to just glaze over them.” But then I spoke to a few people afterwards, who told me: “It’s a digital media company. They have their projects, and they probably are just making things look pretty.”

So he and the VP of Communications were like, “Your presentation skills were amazing, this was a really wonderful presentation. We just want to see more of your visual design.” And they showed me what they did with the client, and they basically had a sub-brand which is a product where you can build a greeting card with photos from Facebook. Then a week later, they sent me another test, where they said: “OK. Now you can prove your visual design skills by redesigning the marketing splash page …

At that point I got frustrated, and asked: “OK. What are you looking for? What is the position? Send me the role description.”

She sends me the role description, it’s for a user interface designer—90% of the job duties and responsibilities are visual design, and nothing to do with UX. So I answered, “I’m getting confused—are you looking for a UX intern position? Or are you looking for a full-time designer? Because this role looks like someone needs to have 3-5 years experience.” And she says, “Well it depends on your skill level. It could be an internship, or it could be full-time.” And then a minute later, she said, “But it seems like we need someone with more experience than you for this position.” And I was like: “But you knew from the beginning … I applied for a UX internship position, and you saw my resume, that I had no experience, and everything I’ve been doing has been independent projects and independent learning!” So I politely declined and said, “I don’t think this is a good match, but I really love your company, I love the culture, so if you guys come up with a spot for a UX internship, give me a call.” And she was like, “Yeah, for sure.” And she tried to enrol me in this training session that her UX lead was doing on wireframing or prototyping or something. She tried to get me in there, couldn’t get me in there, so our relationship ended there.

Ultimately, to sum it up, it was a massive communication error between her and the director of UX. They totally misunderstood each other on what they were looking for. And then ended up with a lot of confusion on what happened with me. So that was kind of a red flag for me—for a VP team to have that much discord or misunderstanding between each other. That was a little bit weird. Especially for a small company that only has 50 people. That shouldn’t be happening.

So I’m not as impressed as I was before. And it was frustrating to go through that experience with the other company, where they only wanted me because of my recruiting skills, and they were just offering the UX thing to try and entice me, to get free labour, essentially.

And my mentor was like, “Yeah, that was sketchy. It’s a good thing you didn’t go with them.” But they also won the Webby award for their app! I think I could have learned a lot!

Matt: Here’s my take on all of that. I think you are definitely right to be sceptical if the UX Director of a company clearly has a misunderstanding of what UX means. I think it was actually Lis Hubert who wrote an article a while back around this whole “UX/UI” misunderstanding.

So good on you, for speaking your mind and trying to get that clarification. I wonder if they’re going to go and use your ideas themselves! I do think that making you do much work for a free role is borderline spec work, essentially. It sounds like you put a huge amount of effort into that. So good on you for standing your ground!

By the same token I do think that finding your perfect role off the bat is probably something you need to work towards. In any job—for example, there are aspects that I’m not as passionate about as others. For me, that’s the finance, and the business management stuff, invoicing. I don’t get too inspired by that, but because I’m a freelancer, it’s part of the deal and something I need to accept and find a way to … I use some tools to make it a bit easier. But I think there is always going to be some aspect of a role that you need to accept isn’t going to make you wake up in the morning and jump for joy.

But if overall you’re getting some good experience and you’re doing things that you’re passionate about … maybe 50% recruiting might be pushing the friendship in terms of that split. It sounds to me like you’re going with the right attitude and the right approach. The amount of effort you put into all that preparation … you’ve clearly got a good handle on user-centred design process, and having a portfolio to use as a launch pad to talk about your process and defend your design decisions. So all I would see is: just keep at it. There’s a big demand for this kind of skill, and there are companies out there that are looking for these people, and I have no concerns that you’re not going to find something soon. Because it sounds like you would bring some amazing insight to companies that aren’t enlightened about this stuff. Keep your chin up, keep doing what you’re doing, and it’s going to happen!

Christine: I hope so! It’s getting to the point where, you know when you run hot for so long, and you’re living and breathing it, and you’ve done a few interviews … and then you start feeling that discouraging part. That’s why I met up with Lis, and she sympathises with the plight of no-one being really willing to invest in real UX design. Companies thinking that if it looks pretty, it’ll work well. So that was nice. And I love that Lis is an information architect, she doesn’t touch visual design. I love that. Because I don’t want to be a work horse. I don’t want someone to say: “Here are 10 websites. Make them look nice.” And essentially that’s what they do.

Matt: By the same token, visual design skills are clearly what a lot of people latch on to. So if you can work on them and find a way to add that to your skillset, then it’s definitely going to give you an edge over people that are looking for a pure research role or just want to do interaction design.

Christine: Yeah, I’ve thought about that. Learning just the UX part is so incredibly time-consuming. I have seven books. I’ve read through three. I did a course that took several weeks to finish. And reading all the blogs that you guys write, keeping abreast of everything that’s happening. Responsive design is out now—oh my gosh. So I’m really overwhelmed already. So I thought about it, and thought, “If I could add that to my skillset—if I could say “hey, I can make this look awesome.” That would make me a thousand times more marketable. And I could probably morph into a full UX role … you know what I mean? It would open up a lot of doors.

Matt: I think there are a lot of parts to it though. Finding a role that just gets you involved in a project, whether it’s in a content capacity, or … a lot of UXers were previously developers, writing front-end code, and they transitioned by taking it upon themselves to do some user testing, even thought it wasn’t part of the project plan. And all of a sudden the insights that come from that become invaluable, and they end up, by necessity, morphing into a usability and a UX role.

Christine: I definitely see that it’s a lot easier for people already in IT to get to that path. I have a good design eye—when I was little, I painted, I drew. I have an artistic nature. But I’m not going to lie—university killed it! I studied political science and sociology. All I did for six years was read, read, read, and write. And I didn’t touch a pencil since I was a teenager. Even then, website design is very different from painting a picture. So I know what colours look good. I know typography, and what fonts look good. If you give me a hideous site, I could definitely do a better job of it. But I don’t think I’m confident enough to say, “Yeah, I can handle this by myself.” If anything, a creative director would be telling me “this is what I need you to do.” Because it’s like a muscle, and it’s dead right now, you know what I mean?

And my philosophy is—it’s my personal preference that the simpler it looks, the more I like it. The fewer colours, the same font … I’m like that, and everything I do is very simple, and I don’t think that really showcases very much talent. I don’t have a lot of confidence that I can go into a UI design position…

Matt: Neither do I! I don’t think it’s fair to try and aspire to the kind of photorealistic polish that you see on sites like dribbble. I used to browse dribbble every day, and get inspired, and then I started getting depressed that I’d never be able to achieve the same level of polish. But I would really recommend trying to tick the box without trying to be the most awesome UI designer in the world. A UX designer is, by definition, a generalist role. And I think you just need to tick that box and prove that you’ve got that skill, without trying to pretend you’re the best designer in the world.

I don’t think that’s what people are looking for. It’s really just about “Is that box ticked? Is the research box ticked? Is the prototyping and user testing box ticked?” If you’ve got that full suite of understanding of the big picture… that’s what I’ve discovered makes someone marketable. That would be my advice. Don’t be precious about showing what your skills are right now. It’s easy for me to say, but don’t get scared about putting them out there and showing what you can do. Knowing that you’ve got a certain style, or you do “simplicity” and that’s what your style is … that’s OK! Get it out there. People like seeing visuals—if they can see the full process, from start to finish, and that’s one part of it, great. That makes you marketable.

But I get it. It can be scary when you see these amazing visual designers.

Christine: Right. It’s so easy to copy. But to come up with that on your own—that’s a true talent.

Matt: Like I said, unless you want to go and become the most amazing visual designer, you just need to tick the box. It’s OK to just be OK at visual design. That’s how I would describe myself.

Christine: That does make sense, because some projects aren’t going to require a crazy, amazing design. I look at the most popular apps, and it’s not so much visual design as it is really good IA with some nice colours. Like, if you look at Facebook or Yelp, they’re so simple.

Matt: And there are some sites out there … we’re working with a non-profit at the moment, and they haven’t really had anyone, even with an IT base, working in-house. They just have a couple of developers that have done stuff over the years. And the experience of their site is awful. And to bring them up to the bare basics of best-practice conventions is an amazing leap forward. We don’t need to make this site win awards and blow people away when they launch it, you know? We just need to give them best practice and make it tailored to their users. Delight can come from giving people a usable experience that empowers them. It doesn’t need to be an award-winning visual feast.

Christine: Yeah, right. I know it’s a lot easier to get in that route. But these days I’m working 40 hours a week, and when I come home I just want to learn more about UX. And I don’t know if I should put a hold on my job search and just keep working at new projects and keep doing my own thing, or if I should keep emailing people and networking and finding people on LinkedIn and meeting up with them … I’ve met up with a handful of people already. Do you think I should just keep meeting people, and keep applying? Or do you think I need to be a little more knowledgeable about stuff. I know the basic theories of things, but if you ask me: name me all the situations where an icon would be used better than a text link … I could probably give you two or three, but I’m not totally all there right now.

Matt: It sounds to me like you have a pretty good handle on the big picture and the process. I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep learning, because this is an industry where we can always keep learning, there is always something new to get your head around. But networking is always going to pay dividends.

Your online presence—have you thought about maybe starting a blog and documenting your journey, and clarifying your own thoughts by writing about them? Is that something that you’d consider?

Christine: I have a blog, but I was mostly using it for self-reflection. I was just writing down what I’ve been learning in class, and what I find useful. Because I like to go back to them and read what I wrote in case I forgot something. But I’m not focussing at all on SEO. I don’t have any hits on my page; frankly I haven’t had the time. My primary goal isn’t to get a web presence right now as it is to just get a job. But I also see the value of having a brand, and having people know you. So mostly my website has been to showcase articles I’ve written. I can write, I can think. And I did learn these UX things, so I did want to write it to show prospective employers that I have actually done the legwork. And then I use my site to just put the wireframes I’ve been working on.

Matt: And those projects you’ve been creating wireframes for. Are they hypothetical projects? What have you based them on?

Christine: One of them is a startup—a side-project that some colleagues of mine have been doing. One is a BA, the other is a developer. They’re creating a mobile application to attend sporting events around the city. So that one was me working as the UX designer, going all the way up to low-fidelity wireframes. And the second I did, we talked about before. And then I want to do another app for people with eczema. My friend is starting a business, and she has a website, and she’s doing some ecommerce with some products relating to helping people with eczema. So I’m starting the strategy phase of that one. But she’s getting married now! So she’s very busy. It’s difficult to sit down with her and get that part hashed out.

Matt: It sounds like you’re doing everything right, and you just need to be patient. Having an online presence, networking with people, continuing to learn, getting some experience by donating your time … these are all the things that I advocate and recommend. You’re putting yourself out there, open to a bunch of opportunities, and one of them is going to bear fruit, I’m sure of it. So keep doing what you’re doing! Keep being excited. Keep meeting people. The rewards will come, I’m positive.

Christine: I hope so! Because I’m so excited about this industry, and I think it’s only going to get more and more interesting.

Matt: Well I would love to stay in touch and hear more about your journey and how it pans out.

Christine: Yeah! I’m always visiting your site. It’s in my bookmarks. I’m always reading your articles—I love the articles where you ask people to share their experiences. I love that. The UX community is pretty tight-knit, I find.

Matt: It is very supportive.

Christine: And your site was the first one that I really read almost as much as I could on it.

Matt: Well that’s just made my day, haha!

Christine: Seriously! Your video on why you like UX, and a day in the life of a UX designer, with you biking to work, and putting the kids to bed. I was like, “This makes it so much less daunting.” And it was encouraging to see ordinary people just really loving their jobs, that’s what I want.

Matt: Well Christine if there are any employers out there listening to our conversation, we’ll make sure that your contact details are available so that they can reach out to you. I think you’ve got a lot to bring to them.

Christine: Haha, sure!

Matt: Well thankyou so much for your time and for chatting. Keep us posted we’ll stay in touch.

Christine: Yeah, it’s been fun! Take care Matthew.

Matt: Take care. See you Christine.

Christine: Bye!

The post UX Mastery Podcast #2: It’s A Jungle Out There appeared first on UX Mastery.