Just getting started in UX Design can be overwhelming exercise and I have put together helpful detailed articles that get you moving in the right direction
We will evaluating a Junior UX designer’s portfolio who transitioned from a UX/UI designer to a UX Designer in 2023. Ellen Shin is a currently a UX designer based in northern VA and her academic background is in communication and graphic design. We will evaluate the portfolio as a recruiter would when going through design application for a UX role. There are some obvious mistakes that I identified that one should avoid but overall a good portfolio for a Junior designer starting out.
Takeaways:
Ensure you have large clear images of work so that an recruiter can easily evaluate it.
If you frustrate a recruiter who is going through your design work, they can move on from your portfolio to the next one despite how good the work is. Keep things simple and clear.
Present work like wireframes and visual designs with headings, annotations and connected lines to better communicate work
Ever wondered if you have the right skills and qualifications to get a design role? Do you need a design background? I want to share with you five not-so-straight-forward career paths into design. David Anderson of Houzz started with anthropology, Amir Hadjihabib at Zendesk transitioned from photography, and Michael McWatters of HBOMax shifted from fine art. Each career path highlights the unique and unexpected routes to design.
Let’s get stuck in.
David Anderson, Lead Product Designer at Houzz
Part of what led me to design, believe it or not, was my undergraduate degree in anthropology! At the time, of course, I had no idea that social science was such a good match with UX design, but once I started exploring the industry I quickly saw that an understanding of anthropology and UX really go together.
Studying social science helps me ask the right design questions — discovering the psychology behind how people use not only your app, but technology in general. It’s really given me an interesting way to look at users to find out what they’re looking for and what they expect.
I ended up at Houzz because I was excited by the opportunity to design for an app that’s used by millions of people who truly love it – our reviews average five stars. The talented team and the incredible content are a big part of the apps’ success and why I was attracted to working at Houzz.
Laura Lozano, Sprout Social
I kind of had a non-traditional start to design. In my past life, I worked as an assistant account executive. When I was picking my career path and deciding which college to go to, I never really considered a creative career – I just didn’t think it was a viable career option, so I decided to study English and minor in Business instead.
Design is simply addressing a business problem visually – It’s important to remember that before you get lost in the nitty-gritty of color options and grid systems.
Right after graduating, I started at an ad agency and after, like, a week and a half, it was clear that I was not in the right career path: It just wasn’t the right fit for me. But I was sort of stuck there, because you need a portfolio to get a job in design and I had no idea how to go about that process. After about a year and a half of talking to all of the designers at the ad agency, I eventually just took the plunge and quit to go back to school: I just wanted to see if I could follow this crazy dream of becoming a designer. I opted to go back to school as a chance to build out my portfolio, and just to learn more about design in general – I felt like I needed a good foundation before I could start looking for jobs. Design isn’t about who you know, or where you went to school: it’s about what you can do.
Jason Lang, Head of Design at Glue.ai
My parents were always really good about exposing me to the arts, and my dad was a programmer, so that helped. The classical music, drawing, painting, and being surrounded by my dad’s computers and programming talk around the dinner table bred the product designer in me. I was always drawn to building things that could be used. In 5th or 6th grade, I did a pretty cool project for a science fair: Instead of doing a PowerPoint presentation, I decided to make an HTML website. I lugged my tower case and CRT monitor to the science fair and showed my project on one of the original web publishing programs that came with Windows.
InVision is great because it actually cuts down the technical know how to [create prototypes] and then makes the process faster and easier to edit.
Through high school, I thought I might do biology or something, but towards the end an art teacher encouraged me to pursue graphic design. So I went to college for graphic and interactive design. I spent some time doing print work for a while, and when I graduated I got the opportunity to move out here and work for Posterous. That’s when I really dove head-first into doing product design and UI.
Amir Hadjihabib, Zendesk
Originally, I was never into design. I love photography: it’s my passion. Any time I can shoot I enjoy it. My mom gave me a camera when I was 5 or 6 years old and so I was always running around with a camera. I started to develop a really strong interest in photography and now I have 15-20 cameras, both film and digital. I was thinking about going to school for photography so I started researching photography as a career, but it just didn’t seem like something I wanted. The industry is pretty rough. It’s really competitive and it just wasn’t an attractive culture. Zendesk is a really fun environment but if I was doing photography it would be a lot more nose-to-the-grind. As I was researching careers, I found out about new media. I grew up on computers, and it just made more sense to me to try design on a computer. I’ve always had a strong interest in art, but design is a relatively new thing since college. It was always photography.
Michael McWatters, Vice President, Product Design for Max
I didn’t have a straight path to where I am now. My Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees were in fine art, but after grad school I decided I wanted to make things for people to use or interact with—things with a function or purpose. This led naturally to design. These were the early days of the web when we were all just figuring it out.
“I like to write a simple narrative—like a screenplay—that describes a user journey: how they arrived, what they hope to do, what might make them stumble.”
Most of my career thereafter was spent on the agency side of things, but over time I grew frustrated with the fact that, as a consultant, I didn’t really own the products I was designing and couldn’t help them evolve and improve after launch. Plus I was often disconnected from the engineers building them.
So about 6 years ago I moved to a tech firm that was in the business of designing, building and maintaining products. I was the only UX guy—it was exhilarating. Thanks to that transition—and a bit of serendipity—I wound up at TED a couple years later. It’s been the greatest leap in my career so far.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, if you are looking to transition to design don’t feel inadequate because you don’t not have a design background or a design related qualification. You just need to start from where you are with what you have and realize it might take time to break into the field. And that’s okay.
Today’s design brief is to redesign Renault’s South African car dealership website. This was an actual real project that I worked on at my digital agency but for Toyota Global. For this brief I have changed names and some details. This is the 7th design brief or practice project for UI and UX designers looking to build a portfolio of credible work. Each detailed client brief is time-boxed, detailed, and crafted realistically enough to give you a hands-on experience of doing a real project. The design brief is meant to help you create realistic work you can add to your portfolio and test if design really is for you.
As is usually the case, I have included the following sections with each design brief:
Timeline(For this to be realistic each brief has a timeline that is as close to real-world work as possible)
Objectives(What is REQUIRED by the client. This part usually trips designers up as they go off designing what is not required)
Platform(Where your designs will live. Understanding these platforms will give a well-considered solution)
Target audience (Users always come first and the design must accommodate the target audience’s pain points)
References(If you are not sure where to start, clients normally give a set of examples or references they like. The closer the design solution is to the references, the fewer revisions a designer will have to do)
Deliverables(Most importantly how the solution should be delivered. These represent what a well-detailed portfolio case study looks like so hit it out of the park)
Recruiter advice(Portfolio advice from creative directors, CEOs and leading design creatives from the biggest companies)
This will help you build your case study much faster as the project objectives and such are provided.
1–2 weeks. The project is expected to be completed within two weeks.
Objectives
We are looking to redesign the official Renault website in South Africa. The site should provide a seamless experience for potential customers to browse our catalogue, book a test drive and purchase vehicles from our dealership. The website will be the primary sales tool for our business, and we want it to be easy to use, informative and visually appealing.
Success Metrics to Consider: Conversion rate: The percentage of website visitors who purchase a vehicle or schedule a test drive. User engagement: The amount of time visitors spend on the website and the number of pages they visit. Search performance: The number of visitors who use the search function and the accuracy of the search results. Customer satisfaction: Feedback from customers who use the website to purchase a vehicle or schedule a test drive.
This is the current site:
Platform
Please design website screens for desktop (1440px wide and mobile view 365px wide).
Target Audience
John, 35 | Busy Executive NEEDS A quick and easy way to search for cars that fit his budget and preferences. He is also interested in finance and insurance options that can be bundled with his purchase. Schedule is very tight and he doesn’t want to be haggled by salespeople at a dealership.
Sarah, 28 | First-time Car Buyer NEEDS Needs guidance and information about the car buying process. She also wants to compare different models and prices to make an informed decision. She is not familiar with the technical terms used in the car industry, which can make her feel overwhelmed. She is also on a tight budget and needs to find a car that is affordable but still reliable.
Robert, 50 | Experienced Car Enthusiast NEEDS Looking for a dealership that specializes in luxury cars and can provide him with personalized service. He is interested in the latest models and technology features. Robert has high expectations and wants to be treated like a VIP. He is not interested in mass-produced cars and wants a dealership that can provide him with unique and exclusive options.
Specifications/ Limitations
Site must load quickly hence any large interactions must be kept to a minimum.
• Research and testing conducted • Wireframes/UI designs of ⁃ Homepage: Welcome message, featured vehicles, search function ⁃ Search results page: List of vehicles that match search criteria ⁃ Vehicle detail page: Vehicle photos, specifications, pricing, reviews, similar vehicles ⁃ Schedule test drive page: Form to schedule a test drive, available dates and times ⁃ Request quote page: Form to request a price quote, additional information ⁃ Contact us page: Contact information, form to send a message ⁃ Checkout page: Vehicle details, pricing, financing options, payment information
Testing and Results section
Show your wireframes to 5 people and ask them using your designs what they think about them, what they would improve, and an overall rating.
Take their feedback, iterate the designs, and have a final round of testing with 5 users. See that you improve your overall rating. If not go back to the drawing board and change your designs and retest
What to do next
Download portfolio project PDFs of all the other existing design projects to do in your own time.
Portfolio Advice from recruiters
I love to see how designers tackle complex problems in their portfolio case studies. It’s important to not only show the final product, but the process that got you there. – Satish Kanwar, VP of Design at Shopify
I want to see a clear articulation of the problem, the design process, and the impact of the solution. Numbers and metrics are important, but so is the story behind them. – Khoi Vinh, Principal Designer at Adobe
Today’s design brief is a redesign of the existing Swedish tourism site. This was an actual real project that I worked on at my digital agency but for the South African Tourism site. Obviously for our purposes I have changed the details to suit a public design brief. This is the 9th design brief or practice project for UI and UX designers looking to build a portfolio of credible work. Each detailed client brief is time-boxed, detailed, and crafted realistically enough to give you a hands-on experience of doing a real project. The design brief is meant to help you create realistic work you can add to your portfolio and test if design really is for you.
As is usually the case, I have included the following sections with each design brief:
Timeline(For this to be realistic each brief has a timeline that is as close to real-world work as possible)
Objectives(What is REQUIRED by the client. This part usually trips designers up as they go off designing what is not required)
Platform(Where your designs will live. Understanding these platforms will give a well-considered solution)
Target audience (Users always come first and the design must accommodate the target audience’s pain points)
References(If you are not sure where to start, clients normally give a set of examples or references they like. The closer the design solution is to the references, the fewer revisions a designer will have to do)
Deliverables(Most importantly how the solution should be delivered. These represent what a well-detailed portfolio case study looks like so hit it out of the park)
Recruiter advice(Portfolio advice from creative directors, CEOs and leading design creatives from the biggest companies)
This will help you build your case study much faster as the project objectives and such are provided.
1–2 weeks. The project is expected to be completed within two weeks.
Objectives
We are looking for a redesign for the Swedish tourism website. The site is in need of a refresh and we require it to be visually appealing, easy to navigate, and provide all the necessary information to help visitors plan a trip. Our culture should be reflected across the site especially famous landmarks and common local native words.
“In 2020, domestic tourism accounted for approximately 85% of global tourism spending.” – Source: World Tourism Organization.
Success Metrics to Consider
Number of website visitors Engagement rate (time spent on site, pages viewed per session) Conversion rate (number of bookings or inquiries) Customer satisfaction (rating and feedback)
Platform
Please design website screens for desktop (1440px wide and mobile view 365px wide).
Target Audience
Sarah Johnson, 28 | Adventure Traveler NEEDS She is looking for travel experiences that allow her to discover different cultures and trying new foods. Sarah wants to make sure that the travel experiences she books are safe and well-organized, with knowledgeable guides and good equipment.
James Lee, 42 | Family Vacationer NEEDS He is looking for travel experiences that are family-friendly, with activities that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults. James may be concerned about the cost of family travel, as well as the logistics of coordinating travel for multiple people. He may also be worried about keeping his family safe while traveling to unfamiliar places.
Marie Jensen, 55 | Cultural Tourist NEEDS She is interested in visiting museums, historic sites, and art galleries, and may also enjoy attending cultural events like concerts and festivals. She values comfortable accommodations and good food, but is primarily motivated by her desire to learn. Maria may be concerned about language barriers and navigating unfamiliar cities; accessibility and mobility issues.
Specifications/ Limitations
Site must load quickly hence any large interactions must be kept to a minimum.
References
References that our company would like the website to follow in terms of structure and layout. It will be your job to replicate something close to these websites but add your creative flair to it.
• Sketch of conceptual ideas and a sitemap • Wireframes/UI designs of ⁃ Homepage: This should be visually appealing and provide an overview of the destination and the experiences on offer. ⁃ Things to Do: This section should provide information on the top tourist attractions, outdoor activities, and cultural experiences in the area. ⁃ Places to Stay: This section should provide information on the best hotels, resorts, and vacation rentals in the area. ⁃ Local Food: This section should highlight the local cuisine and provide recommendations for restaurants and food experiences. ⁃ Travel Tips: This section should provide helpful information for travelers, such as visa requirements, currency exchange, and transportation options. ⁃ Booking: This section should allow users to book tours and activities directly from the website. ⁃ Blog: This section should provide fresh and relevant content to attract visitors and improve SEO.
Testing and Results section
Show your wireframes to 5 people and ask them using your designs what they think about them, what they would improve, and an overall rating.
Take their feedback, iterate the designs, and have a final round of testing with 5 users. See that you improve your overall rating. If not go back to the drawing board and change your designs and retest.
Portfolio Advice from recruiters
I love to see how designers tackle complex problems in their portfolio case studies. It’s important to not only show the final product, but the process that got you there. – Satish Kanwar, VP of Design at Shopify
I want to see a clear articulation of the problem, the design process, and the impact of the solution. Numbers and metrics are important, but so is the story behind them. – Khoi Vinh, Principal Designer at Adob
What to do next
Download a portfolio project PDF of this design project and all the other existing design projects to do in your own time.
We will evaluating a Junior UX researcher’s portfolio who transitioned from a UI/UX designer to a UX Designer in 2022. Saba Fathi is a currently a UX Researcher & product person who is very passionate about developing simple yet innovative experiences. We will evaluate the portfolio as a recruiter would when going through design application for a UX role. There are some obvious mistakes that I identified that one should avoid but overall a good portfolio for a Junior designer starting out.
Takeaways:
Ensure you have case study thumbnails that relate to the project and the type of platform you were designing for(App, web etc).
Always use case study headings and subtitles that help the reader understand what the project is about
If you show a design process, try to show how each step in the design process was conducted and how it flows into the next step
Always show numbers for context and credibility. Number of testers, number of survey responses, etc.
Today we review Benny Sun’s fantastic design portfolio. What makes it interesting is that Benny transitioned from UX/UI designer to Principal User researcher at Morgan Stanley. He has a background in the educational sector and was a R&D researcher for a Edtech company amongst other things. As usual, I will outline what he does particularly well and share some practical takeaways that you can replicate in your UX portfolio. If you are transitioning to UX or already applying to UX jobs this portfolio review will be insightful.
Let’s begin.
Practical Takeaways
Keep to a consistent look for your UX portfolio projects with clear understandable headings and sub-headings.
Project summaries are super helpful for recruiters who are pressed for time. Include them.
Ensure that your UX portfolio reads well by outlining a design process and show how each step feeds into the next
When showing design screens, sketches or wireframes help the reader by showing annotations and connected userflows.
Always try to be descriptive about how many participants took part in a study and what the results where.
This series aims at quickly summarizing UX books you know of and some you may not have read. We will outline 5 main takeaways from each book, how long it takes to read the book and share balanced reviews on the book. Today’s UX book is Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton. If you find the insights valuable then you can consider diving deeper into its material.
Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design– Quick Summary This is a comprehensive guide to incorporating sketching into the design process. Buxton’s insights help designers understand the value of sketching as a tool for creativity, exploration, and communication. The book encourages an iterative, user-centered approach to design, where sketching plays a central role in developing and refining ideas.
Book Reading Time: 12.3 Hours Amazon Rating: 4.3 / 5
About the author
As a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, he had a 30-year involvement in research, design, and commentary around human aspects of technology. He was a researcher at Xerox PARC, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. He has been awarded three honorary doctorates, is co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, received an ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a Fellow of the ACM. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto and Distinguished Professor of Industrial Design at the Technical University Eindhoven.
1. Embrace Sketching as a Core Design Activity
Sketching is not just about drawing; it’s a fundamental part of the design thinking process that fosters ideation, exploration, and communication. Implementation: Incorporate sketching early and throughout the design process. Use it to quickly visualize and iterate on ideas without the constraints of high-fidelity tools. Encourage team members to sketch their concepts and share them for collaborative brainstorming sessions.
2. Use Multiple Representations
Different stages of the design process benefit from different levels of fidelity and forms of representation, from rough sketches to detailed prototypes. Implementation: Use a variety of representations such as hand-drawn sketches, wireframes, storyboards, and interactive prototypes. This approach allows you to explore different aspects of the design, get feedback at various levels of detail, and gradually refine your concepts.
3. Iterate Rapidly and Often
Design is an iterative process where each version of a sketch or prototype should elicit feedback and insights that inform subsequent iterations. Implementation: Adopt an iterative approach by creating quick, low-fidelity sketches and prototypes, testing them with users and stakeholders, and refining them based on feedback. This cycle should be repeated often to ensure the design evolves and improves continuously.
4. Leverage Storytelling and Scenarios
Creating scenarios and narratives helps to understand and communicate how users will interact with the product in real-world contexts. Implementation: Develop detailed user scenarios and stories that illustrate the user’s journey and interactions with the product. Use these narratives to uncover user needs, pain points, and opportunities for enhancement. Storytelling can also make your design concepts more relatable and understandable to stakeholders.
5. Foster Collaboration and Communication
Effective design requires collaboration and clear communication within the design team and with other stakeholders. Implementation: Create an open and collaborative design environment where team members feel encouraged to share ideas and provide feedback. Use sketches and other visual tools to facilitate discussions and ensure everyone has a shared understanding of the design direction. Regularly conduct critique sessions and workshops to gather diverse perspectives and improve the design.
Balanced Reviews on this book
“This book is not about drawing technique. It is about how imagining future products and experieces through thnking and visualizing and inviting and so on with a variety of tools including the use of drawing. The author’s academic tone is a bit laborious. However, there are great insights and articulation within the pages that make it well worth reading. A great inspiration for me. He desperately needs an editor to cut the text to 50%. And the layout is great and the images are great, but somebody needs to get the image not Photoshop for basic color and contrast fixes. A must read for collaborative (and rapid) product conceptualization for non-artists and artist alike.”- Amazon review
“As an experienced professional in systems development, I found this book pretty spot on. While there is some discussion on techniques and methods, I found the real point of this book was the value of doing design before building. That’s something we in the IT world could learn from our construction buddies. No one would think of building elaborate buildings without architects (as well as other design professionals) doing the design before ground is broken (with the exception of a very few notable cases). Yet as devs we tend to do it more often than not. As someone stronger in the design side rather than coding, I find myself wishing we did more of it.The book was really more of a treatise of why we need it than how, which is probably more important for many of us. The writing itself was a bit meandering, and some of the examples were strained and a bit longer than the point it was trying get across.” – Amazon review
“This book provides a very good foundation for all types of designers. The author Bill Buxton is a researcher at Microsoft, with a background in human-computer interactions in disciplines including art, music and film. Although many of the examples are taken from the world of software design, those in other disciplines will undoubtedly recognize the universal principles of good design that can be applied to their own work. Furthermore, as more and more people spend time on computers, smart phones, and e-book readers, it is useful for all design professionals to understand a bit about software design and the ways in which users interact with those increasingly ubiquitous devices. Increasingly, everything from a poster to a building is designed to create an experience, rather than merely serve its functional purpose. Therefore, this book will be useful to anyone in a design-related field, including product designers, graphic designers, architects, interior designers, and film makers, as well as software and HCI designers. Drawings, diagrams, photographs, screen shots, and an accompanying website illustrate the text. Recommended for any design collection.”- Amazon review
“I am an interaction designer for almost 10 years, and I am often disappointed with books on this subject. They are all too basic and tell you the obvious. They don’t add much, except validating what you already know and make you feel good about what you do. This book was different. It gave me a different perspective. It pushed me in exploring alternatives, trying different techniques, and don’t be intimidated by starting from the old paper-and-pencil sketches. I feel that this was one of the few books that I read which effectively help improving my work.” – Amazon review
Today we evaluate Otilia Oandelea’s portfolio and UX work. Otilia is a UX & product design intern with 2+ years of experience and finished the Google UX Design Professional course in 2022. Despite being entry level designer, the portfolio is presented really well. I will highlight what UX recruiters and UX hiring managers look for when evaluating such a portfolio using emojis to indicate my emotions.
Takeaways: – Ensure that the site is easy to navigate and has links for an About page, Contact details and resume/LinkedIn -Use clear project imagery and project headings to help guide recruiters and hiring managers – A project summary upfront is critical because recruiters do not spend long on a single application among hundreds – Show before and after screens as your recruiter will not have as much project context as you do about what changed – Showing quotes from usability test participant is great for qualitative feedback around product satisfaction – Major bonus points for adding a prototype – If you do not have results or the project is not launched yet, reflections or “what comes next” are a great way to end a project
This a review of Rachel Baek’s portfolio and one of her case studies. I chose this particular portfolio because Rachel was a teacher for 7 years before transitioning to UI/UX designer. Despite being entry level designer, her portfolio is presented really well and case studies have the perfect layout whether you are a UX designer or UI designer. I will show what UX recruiters and UX hiring managers look for when evaluating such a portfolio using emojis to indicate my emotions.
Let’s begin.
Takeaways: – Use clear project imagery and project headings to help guide recruiters and hiring managers – A project summary upfront is critical because recruiters do not spend long on a single application among hundreds – Breakdown your design process and specify what you did especially if it was a team effort – Show before and after screens as your recruiter will not have as much project context as you do – Showing handover process is great if you worked with developers – Major bonus points for adding a prototype – If you do not have results or the project is not launched yet, reflections are a great way to end a project
As a UX team manager and recruiter, I will be reviewing a Google Certification Course case study from Kevin, a self-taught UX designer based in Illinois. He decided to enroll in the Google UX Design Certificate Program in hopes of enhancing the limited amount of UX knowledge he already had. He studied Creative Technologies, which is an interdisciplinary major that covers several topics such as motion graphics, interactivity, and web design.
I will approach the UX portfolio the same way we normally do when hiring for a entry level designer.
Let’s get into it.
In conclusion
The Google Course definitely seems to give students a good basic UX education framework to help them build a portfolio. This case study was decent but incomplete which introduces doubt in a recruiter’s mind. There are certain sections that needed more information and some that did not make sense.
Takeaways:
Have descriptive project headings so that recruiters know which one may be relevant to them.
Always have a good summary of the problem, designer project role, project type, and when the project was done.
For any UX method used, detail why the method was picked, what the deliverables were, and how this influenced the next steps.
Show iterations, sketches, wireframes alongside sitemaps and user flows.
Detail how testing is conducted, how the feedback was incorporated and if the final design was retested
