#13 UX Portfolios: Are You Making This Common Mistake?
#13 UX Portfolios: Are You Making This Common Mistake?
The key to pivoting your career into the design world includes having a unique and relevant UX portfolio.
Read time: under 4 minutes
Have you been applying for jobs to keep getting ghosted? Sucks, eh?
The key to pivoting your career into the design world includes having a unique and relevant UX portfolio — you'd want to stand out from any possible competition from entry-level designers to industry 'hot shots'.
And frankly, the 'right' format sometimes depends on the preference of the interviewing company. So it is up to you to present your portfolio and wow the company you're applying for.
Your portfolio essentially is a compilation of work samples that demonstrates your skills, ability, and worth as a designer. And in addition to the final product, you should include examples that span the whole design process from research insights, sketches, wireframes, etc.
The work that you present will ultimately determine how employers and clients view you, and whether they’ll consider you for the job or not.
Remember: You want to showcase both your design thinking process and results.
The right portfolio format?
There are infinite options available to build your online portfolio. Picking the right platform to create and host your portfolio depends on the cost, effort to publish, design flexibility, industry standard, and tech savviness.
Now, here are the two primary portfolio formats that might work for you:
Portfolio Websites
Some of the online portfolio tools that I recommend:
Notion: Simple & minimalist, writing focus interface, easy to use & launch.
Typedream: Simple, writing focus interface, connects with Notion, drag & drop website builder, easy to use & launch.
Webflow: Drag & drop website builder with great flexibility on the look & feel, good options of animations & themes, requires some effort to learn the platform.
Squarespace: Easy to use, drag & drop website builder, decent theme library, requires limited tech knowledge.
💡 Must-haves:
[ ] Homepage / About — a concise introduction
[ ] UX case studies x 3
[ ] Contact information — email address, phone number, etc.
[ ] Links to Resume, LinkedIn, and other sources (Medium, Dribbble, etc.)
👉 A portfolio must be:
[ ] Personal — Who you are, your education & experience, what makes you different
[ ] Accessible — Link to download or access online, good color contrast
[ ] Aesthetic — Visually pleasing and consistent
[ ] Usable — Easy-to-navigate, easy-to-understand writing
[ ] Highlights — Your 3-5 best case studies, side projects </aside>
Portfolio PDFs
Fool-proof tools for your offline portfolios:
Pitch: Design-focused presentation builder, visually appealing templates, easy to share and download as PDF with logo.
Google Slides: Easy to use and quick presentation builder, needs more design effort & customizations, easiest to share & download.
Keynote: Easy to use and quick presentation builder, needs more design effort, easy to download. Accessible only for iOS.
Canva: Design-focused builder with a great selection of assets & templates.
💡 Must-haves:
[ ] Cover page — first impression
[ ] About section — a concise introduction
[ ] UX case studies x 3 — several pages per project
[ ] Final page — Thank you, contact information
👉 A portfolio must be:
[ ] Personal — Who you are, what makes you different
[ ] Accessible — Small file size, upload to cloud storage and send a link to download
[ ] Aesthetic — Visually pleasing and consistent
[ ] Usable — Easy to read and understand
[ ] Highlights — Your 3-5 best case studies, side projects </aside>
Great portfolio examples
Here are some great portfolio examples to inspire you this year:
Key takeaways
Great portfolios show recruiters and hiring managers/teams how a skilled, proactive, collaborative designer, like yourself, can add value to the organization.
Instead of treating it like a one-time project, embrace the spirit of iteration, and create an MVP (minimally viable product or portfolio). Make it good enough now and always improve it later.
Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Junior Designer Bundle: Break into UX industry stress-free with guides to build a kickass portfolio, crush job searching procrastination, nail upcoming interviews, and fundamental UX frameworks. These comprehensive guides will teach you how to get hired for your first UX role. Join designers from 50+ countries here.
2. Senior Designer Bundle: Level-up and become a design leader with systems to help you build a meaningful career and manage your first design team. Join 500+ senior designers.
3. UX Coaching: Get unstuck in your UX career with advice from an Ex-Head of Design. Jump on a 1-hour call to solve your most urgent problems together. Get personalised mentorship here.
I hope you found this helpful.
See ya next week