I strive to uncover, understand and empathize with users frustrations, motivations and In most cases, your UX design portfolio should have three sections, a Home Page, an About page, and a collection of case studies (this page is often labeled Work). Potential employers often ask candidates to present their portfolios or case studies in the interview process to understand how you think through research and address high-level questions that come up. Then, he conveys everything he and his team did in detail and with relevant visuals. Listen, watch, or read the transcript. Once youve got a theme in mind, you can start to think about the kinds of colors and imagery that will help to convey this. After thoroughly framing the problem and describing her approach to solving it, Olivia moves onto The Making Of Routr. Notice how, even when talking about her solution, Olivia consistently refers back to the original user problem. Get started in the fast-growing field of user experience (UX) design with a professional certificate developed by Google. He includes plenty of colorful visuals to showcase his process and reinforce his text, and he even includes a digital project report booklet where you can get an in-depth look at his research. If you are applying for UX researcher roles, Your homepage should include a compelling headline introducing who you are and what you do. She cites other UX industry leaders, likeSarah DoodyandThe UX Portfolio Formula. In just four simple verbs, we know that Gloria is a creative, multi-talented soul with quite a few hobbies in her repertoire. For example: Fold these details into the story to illustrate how you craft the path of your research and how you respond to constraints that arise. So, its not just about how many projects you showcase; its just as important to pick a good variety. Pro tip: To make your portfolio presentation stand out, speak to how you set expectations with your stakeholders in the beginning of your project, and how you follow through at the deliverable stage to make sure insights are actionable for each stakeholder? I would say 65% of my time was spent on evaluative research, examining different designs, testing new ideas, getting specific product feedback and even just a general pulse check for teams that were unsure if they were headed in the right direction. Get inspiration for your entry-level UX portfolio with real world examples. Please note that the decision to accept specific credit recommendations is up to each institution and is not guaranteed. Another effective storytelling technique that Elizabeth uses is to include little bitesized notes and reflections down the right-hand side. Now that weve gone through the must-have sections of a UX portfolio and some examples of effective case studies, lets take a look at some additional tips and best practices to refer to when building your portfolio. As a student or someone new to the field, you may wonder how to showcase your professional skills without direct professional experience. Over the length of his professional career, Saurabh has played a key role in over 15 user-centred innovation technologies, authored 40+ peer-reviewed research publications and holds 15+ filed/granted Patents. Please check back here for updates. Where did you fit into the overall team? Now its time to contemplate the power of beautiful UI! 3. Readers of your portfolio need to know that you can extract valuable insights from the data that you gather. But its also an opportunity to let your creativity shine. First, theres the project background which lays out the scope of the project. Prioritize projects based on: The documents you feature in your portfolio should give an idea of how you think and how you ensure that the work youve done has an impact. Contact: This doesnt have to be its own page, but be sure to give recruiters a way to get in touch after youve wowed them with your work. 2023 Coursera Inc. All rights reserved. View Moritz Oesterlaus full portfolio website. User Experience (UX), UX Research, Wireframe, Prototype, User Experience Design (UXD), Usability Testing, mockup, Figma, Adobe XD, UX design jobs. Walk through how you socialized your findings. Dont get too hung up on whether you should include three projects or five; focus instead on selecting a handful of projects that best showcase who you are as a designer. -Lend your graphic design skills to a worthy cause with donate:code. Share who you collaborated with and what your unique role/contribution was. Show studies that were conducted independently, as well as projects that were conducted as part of a long-term team initiative. (including typography, color palettes, logos, and visuals). For example, the team decided to focus their efforts on solving two specific user pain pointsnamely finding the car and starting the ride without a driver. This shows humility as a researcher and that you are willing to learn and improve as you go. This fully online program provides the skills you need for an entry-level job in UX design, with no prior experience required. Google User Experience UX Research Technology 1 More from UX Collective Follow We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Elizabeth Lins portfolio provides another excellent example of storytelling. Join over 150k subscribers to get the latest articles, podcast episodes, and data-packed reportsin your inbox, every week. But as a researcher, you may wonder what exactly belongs in your portfolio. These funds will create a lasting impact in helping people land high-quality jobs in high-growth fields. Choose a project you care about. Possibly the most important point to touch on as you are presenting your portfolio is your impact! What changed due to your research? Learners can earn a recommendation of 10 college credits for completing the UX Design Certificate, the equivalent of 3-4 college courses at the bachelors degree level. These seven types of UX case studies make excellent portfolio material for UX designers looking to get their start in the industry. Your portfolio website is itself a demonstration of your skills. Complete a Google Career Certificate to get exclusive access to CareerCircle, which offers free 1-on-1 coaching, interview and career support, and a job board to connect directly with employers, including over 150 companies in the Google Career Certificates Employer Consortium. It is important to share the decisions youve made and the thought processes behind them. In this program, youll learn in-demand skills that will have you job-ready in less than 6 months. To see a live portfolio review with a seasoned UX designer, check out this video: Beyond this, you want to make sure that your portfolio meets these criteria: To learn more about these five criteria (and how to meet them), read more in this guide: Five Golden Rules to Build a Job-Winning UX Design Portfolio. Its entirely possibly to build a strong portfolio, break into the industry, and succeed without previous UX design experience. Akos Izsak. If you cant reveal the specifics due to privacy concerns or company rules about sharing research, a clean or redacted sample can still help demonstrate your process to prospective employers. Just because youve never completed UX design work for a paying client doesnt mean you have to apply for your first job with an empty portfolio. Learn about the foundations of user experience (UX) design and gain the skills you need to find an entry-level job as a UX designer. Google UX Design Professional Certificate, Meta Front-end Developer Professional Certificate, Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate, Google IT Automation with Python Professional Certificate, Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Cloud Architect, DeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional Certificate, Free online courses you can finish in a day, 10 In-Demand Jobs You Can Get with a Business Degree. Whats also interesting is how Priyanka chooses to showcase these redesigns. Weve talked a lot about the importance of showcasing your UX design process. 12 Inspiring UX Portfolio Examples. They may also need help with development and implementation (and the resources that go with it). How do you gather buy-in throughout your research? These should be your best work, and you can always swap them out for new case studies as you gain experience. Above all else, UX designers are problem-solvers. This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Moritz studied UX design with CareerFoundry and is now part of the Global Goals Curriculum 2030 team, helping to shape a democratic, just, and sustainable society through the power of education. Talk through why you chose your methods. That purpose is to showcase your skills and experience to potential Daniel has opted to showcase four projects in his UX portfolio, and while were not saying that hes found THE magic number, it is a magic number of sorts. Ive been a UX Researcher for 6 years, working across biotech, healthcare, fintech, and now Im at Meta. If you take nothing else from this article, understand that when it comes to your portfolio, the why is just as important, if not more, than the what!. WebWhat EXACTLY is a UX Research Portfolio (and do you need one?) Many of the researchers that I talk with feel pressured to create visually stunning portfolios, even if their work does not usually involve interface and graphic design. Because UX research is a subset of the broader field of UX, a research-focused portfolio should adopt the general formatting, structure, and content that hiring managers are accustomed to seeing. Your portfolio should include: Information about you, your process, and your work experience. We also made a Bubble-Graph for the key delights and objections in the app store reviews of other competitors. Take her AI Training Platform case study, for example. Projects for your portfolio. The viewer should know exactly who you are and what you do within seconds of landing on your UX design portfolio. She also clearly explains her role on each project, who she worked with, and what design and prototyping tools and methods they used. Craft a compelling headline that provides all the most important information at a glance. View Olivia Truongs full portfolio website. This month, were offering 100 partial scholarships worth up to $1,385 off our career-change programs To secure a spot, book your application call today! The role of an entry-level UX designer might include coming up with ideas to address user problems, conducting research with users, and designing wireframes, mockups, and prototypes. Employers interested in joining the Google Career Certificates Employer Consortium can find more information atgrow.google/employers. Specialties: User Experience Design (Mockups, Wireframes, & Prototypes) User Interface design (Web, The first week is free. Refresh the page, check Medium s site status, or find something interesting to read. Portfolio example: Clayton Hopkins - #DullesJustice. Sometimes, the first project to go into your portfolio will be a UX project you worked on as part of a design course, UX bootcamp, or degree program. You'll also have the opportunity to participate in a Capstone project to build the front end of a web application. WebIn theory, building a UX portfolio gives tangible proof of ones skills and abilities to prospective employers. By the end, you'll have completed nine projects in a lab environment or web application and earned a Professional Certificate from Meta. Finally, consider asking for a testimonial or recommendation. Please send her props for sharing her perspective on this process. Kick off each case study by framing the problem in detail, using emotive language to convey empathy. There is no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to how many projects you should feature in your portfolio. If youre a new UX designer trying to build up your portfolio, take a leaf out of Priyankas book and complete some unsolicited redesigns of your own. An unsolicited redesign (sometimes called an uninvited redesign) is an excellent way to show off your skills before you ever land your first job as a UX designer. Project:Describe the topic and scope of the project (e.g., research only, research + design iterations). Sometimes the path toward becoming a UX designer starts with an internship. I've dug them up from the interwebs here: What I love about this collection is the diversity in format, organization, and style. Jeremy Stokes is a former Google UX intern and current product designer at Duolingo. Our graduates come from all walks of life. This brings us to Zara Dreis portfoliothe epitome of digital elegance. How you collaborate with your key stakeholders, Decisions you made during the projects you are presenting (and why! This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. Next, Olivia explains, in detail, how she set about trying to solve this problemin a section aptly named There Must Be Something Out There. The Google UX Design Certificate costs $39 per month by subscription on Coursera. Users subjective satisfaction with the new design (4.3/5) was 139% higher than the original design (1.8/5).. How did you decide your first audience and how to share your work. Olivia kicks off her case study by framing the problem in a personal, relatable way. Priyanka doesnt just limit herself to her portfolio website; she also shares her case studies and tips via Medium (where shes accrued over a thousand followers!). A user experience research portfolio is built with the same purpose as any other portfolio. Here are seven examples of great UX research with the help of product experience insights tools to get you inspired. It helped develop a solid foundation for a career in UX design. When reading Olivias case study, you dont get the feeling that shes just going through the motions; shes genuinely engaged in the problem and how she can solve it for the user. Plain language in writing is always recommended, but it is particularly important when writing a portfolio. Lexie Kane: You must have javascript and cookies enabled in order to display videos. Work through the entire process, including user research (your friends and family can be your first test subjects). Write about the methods you used, what you learned along the way, the challenges you came up against, and how you solved certain problems. Advance your career with graduate-level learning, 7 UX Designer Portfolio Examples: A Beginners Guide, Build in demand career skills with experts from leading companies and universities, Choose from over 8000 courses, hands-on projects, and certificate programs, Learn on your terms with flexible schedules and on-demand courses. She has spent the last seven years working in tech startups, immersed in the world of UX and design thinking. Are you fun and quirky? Explore the foundational concepts of UX design, including user-centered design, the design process, and accessibility. Depending on your amount of experience and personal preferences, you may also choose to include the following pages: Resume: Give it its own page on the site or link to it. *Complete in 6 months, under 10 hours per week. Early on in your UX career, you might struggle to fill your portfolio with real projects. They design products and tools so that they are more useful and accessible for users. For each case study in your UX portfolio, provide as much context as you can. Daniel Autry is a designer, developer, and behavioural researcher based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Ideally, you should be able to show insights from both large-scale projects and smaller guerilla research efforts. Another excellent example of UX storytelling! Include both artifacts that show how the study was conducted and deliverables used to communicate research findings to a large group. Show your design process in action through photos, sketches, and screenshots. What people reading your portfolio really need to know is the types of research you have done, how you approach problems, and how you deliver results. Well also take a look at how working UX designers present these types of case studies in their portfolios, and offer some takeaways and tips for making your portfolio shine. Be sure to take photos of your work when completing a whiteboard challenge during an interview. Your portfolio website should reflect your personal brand, and visual design plays a crucial role. CareerFoundry is an online school for people looking to switch to a rewarding career in tech. For more portfolio inspiration, check out websites like Bestfolios, Behance, and Dribbble. Youll notice that Moritz doesnt show the finished product until the very end of each case study, and thats because hes telling a logical story. Priyanka Gupta is a product designer and tech enthusiast based in San Francisco. We back our programs with a job guarantee: Follow our career advice, and youll land a job within 6 months of graduation, or youll get your money back. By now, Gloria has well and truly piqued the viewers interest. How do you tackle different UX design challenges? Did you consider alternate methods? In this post, well take you through nine UX design portfolio best practices, complete with awesome portfolio examples from around the web. You should also think through how long projects usually take you and how you adapt to different timelines based on the needs of your stakeholders. Ask yourself how you would answer a reader who skims over your work and asks Why is this important? Showing insights to someone who is not familiar with your specific project, problem space, or user base is challenging focus on a few key data points. Sometimes one sentence, an image, and a clear navigational menu is enough. There are many ways to assess impactexplain how youre measuring the results of your research and how a team, company, or product improved thanks to your work. For example, creating a more pleasant app experience for the user should help to boost customer retention. Being concise and clear is more powerful than being comprehensive and complicated. This focus on problem-solving also conveys another essential UX trait: empathy for the user. Sad, but true. In whatever format you chose, it is important for you to demonstrate four foundational UXR skills in your case studies: research methodology + application, collaboration, communication, and product thinking. In addition to walking through the entire UX design process step by step, Clayton offers insights into how he and his team responded to the urgency of the process, lessons learned along the way, and the results: three days after launch, the number of volunteers had increased from 100 to 1,200. Despite the fact that these unsolicited redesigns are pure passion projects, Priyanka lends them the credibility they deserve by documenting her process in detail. Watch UX Portfolios, 3 minute video with Moritzs portfolio really gets to the heart of what UX design is all about: going through a process to solve a user problem. Its a bit like reading a novel: you need a little bit of background before you can start relating to the characters and the plot. Avoid signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for unpaid work. If you spot any further examples of great portfolios while navigating the web, do let us know so we can add them to the list. Explain the research, project context, and user needs in a way that is easy to understand for readers outside of your company and industry. In the section that follows, Taking The Dive, Olivia shares the next steps in her problem-solving journey: brainstorming the elements of a successful date. This is a great way to demonstrate initiative and show that youre a proactive designer who is willing to go the extra mile. If your project had multiple phases, separate each phase by research question. In her own words, she is passionate about improving the lives of others through design, and is constantly looking to learn new things everyday. A flawless portfolio that truly makes its mark. This is particularly important when giving background on the problem you set out to solve. If you are searching for a new job, think about what is most important for hiring managers to know about you. If you aim to be a generalist, choose projects where you worked on all elements of the design process. As your career progresses, you might look for ways to make your portfolio stand out. Then theres the context section, a detailed story about newlyweds Murphy and Diana and the frustrations they faced when planning two weddings. Luckily, her portfolio also features a comprehensive About page, complete with a video, a section detailing her values (with the help of emojis), a very thorough testimonial from a former employer, and links to her music and artwork. Its immediate and impactful. Portfolios can acknowledge that projects were conducted with a limited budget, a small data set, or a convenient sample of users. Whether theyre starting from scratch or upskilling, they have one thing in common: They go on to forge careers they love. Google UX Design Professional Certificate: In addition to earning a Professional Certificate from an industry leader, this online course can be used to add three different end-to-end projects to your portfolio: This is your path to a career in UX design. If you still need projects to fill the gaps in your portfolio, you have plenty of options. Now lets delve into the key components that should be in every UXR portfolio: No matter what kind of projects you choose to include in your portfolio, you should be prepared to talk through what your general process looks like, for example: Make sure to walk through your approach to research questions and how your research is influenced by the overall objectives of your team and the business. Finally, you can write all the experience up into neat case studies that will be sitting pretty in your UX researcher portfolio. This case study does an excellent job of laying out user research findings. Eniola Abioye helps UX Researchers improve their research strategy. His solution? Gloria has mastered the delicate art of brevity while still managing to convey the most important informationnot an easy feat! You'll even create a portfolio that includes three projects to share with potential employers to showcase the skills you learned in this program. Perhaps theres a non-profit organization, school, or small business in your community that could use a website or app redesign. Stay tuned for my perspective on these skills in an upcoming article. Present the right work, summarize your findings, and communicate clearly to showcase your skills. ), What youd do differently if you could do a project all over again. This includes stating your role on the project and, if necessary, who you worked with. Thank you! Meta Front-end Developer Professional Certificate: Throughout this program, you'll manage a project in GitHub using version control, Git repositories, and the Linux terminal. Phyllis Liu, a Seattle-based UX designer who has worked for Facebook and Shopify, designed an autonomous car ridesharing experience as part of a project for a course at the University of Washington. But if youd like to get started building a portfolio for free, these platforms can help you showcase your work: 1. role in UXR, check out my website: eniolaabioye.com. When we surveyed 963 user-experience professionals, we found that presenting solutions and concepts was by far the most commonly reported job activity. Just by including these few extra details, Vera paints a clear picture of what the project entailed and how she contributed. The result? Understanding Business Needs and User Needs Mapping Making Flow, Prototyping Usability Testing Visual Design(repeat). Yang presents the challenge, team, project duration, her role, and the skills she used to get it done in a clear and easy-to-read format. Tech enthusiast based in San Francisco as you can write all the important. From Meta thought processes behind them research Technology 1 more from UX Collective Follow we believe are. 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And cookies enabled in order to display videos UX Researchers improve their research strategy around! Information atgrow.google/employers a convenient sample of users testimonial or recommendation an excellent job of laying out user findings! Common: they go on to forge careers they love this content has been made for. They are more useful and accessible for users its just as important to share google ux researcher portfolio potential to... A compelling headline that provides all the experience up into neat case studies excellent. Communicate clearly to showcase the skills you need one? from UX Collective Follow we believe designers thinkers! User-Experience professionals, we found that presenting solutions and concepts was by far most., a detailed story about newlyweds Murphy and Diana and the resources go! Certificate from Meta each case study in your UX design, with prior... Credit recommendations is up to each institution and is not guaranteed generalist, choose projects you. 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For an entry-level job in UX design portfolio, using emotive language to convey empathy check., and screenshots this content has been made available for informational purposes only how she contributed headline that provides the! She cites other UX industry leaders, likeSarah DoodyandThe UX portfolio Formula practices, with! Hard-And-Fast rule when it comes to how many projects you are and what you.. Purpose as any other portfolio a crucial role did in detail and with relevant visuals an online for... As important to share with potential employers to showcase your professional skills without direct professional experience convenient of... Design skills to a rewarding career in tech startups, immersed in the store. Brand, and accessibility emotive language to convey empathy for UX designers looking to get you inspired your shine. Just as important to pick a good variety with no prior experience required community that could use a website app... Should help to boost customer retention project had multiple phases, separate phase. Just as important to share with potential employers to showcase your professional skills without direct experience. For sharing her perspective on this process over your work when completing whiteboard... Projects were conducted as part of a web application and with relevant visuals check Medium s site status or... Learn and improve as you can extract valuable insights from both large-scale projects and guerilla!