Get started with a career in UX Design
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
This is the fifth design portfolio project for UI and UX designers looking to build a portfolio of credible work. A detailed client brief that is time-boxed, detailed, and crafted realistically enough to give you a hands-on experience of doing a real project. Each portfolio project is meant to help you create realistic work you can add to your portfolio and test if design really is for you.
Continue reading “UX/UI projects for beginners #5: Property Website”You may be wondering how should you organize a large amount of project information in a case study so that it isn’t overwhelming to recruiters? What information is vital to include in a portfolio case study? Or maybe you are just struggling to bringing together your wireframes, strategies and sections into a clean, attractive narrative. Don’t worry this article is for you.
I recently shared a UX case study example in the previous article that described how to use the free UX Portfolio Case Study template to rapidly create comprehensive case study for your design portfolios from scratch.
The free UX Portfolio Case Study template is based on over 60 portfolios of successful design hires from Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Twitter, Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Dropbox and the insights of top design recruiters from around the world.
Today I want to walk you through another UX case study example on how you can use the UX Portfolio Case Study template from scratch, to create a UX case study for your UX portfolio. We will walk through the creation of each section, step by step so that you can replicate the process for your cases studies.
The UX portfolio project I will use is one I did as a Senior UX Designer at a digital marketing agency. The brief was to completely redesign a responsive web platform for one of the leading investment firms in South Africa, Alexander Forbes. I worked with a project manager, a UI designer, a back-end developer and a front-end developer.
I did the work some time ago so the challenge becomes trying to remember what I did and collecting enough content for a solid case study. This is where the template comes in handy.
The secret sauce:
The core idea is to try to separate your case study creation process into a writing component and designing component so that you can tackle each one without getting stuck or overwhelmed.
This also allows you to plan more effectively what design artifacts you will need in your case study. It’s a system by which you can then rapidly roll out multiple case studies without forgetting anything that’s relevant to a recruiter or client.
In case you did not read the previous article, the UX Portfolio Case Study template has 8 critical sections that recruiters are looking for.
| 1. Project Title & Subtitle | A headline and subtitle that indicates the name and goal of the project |
| 2. Client/Company/Project type | Who was the project for |
| 3. Project date | When did you work on the project |
| 4. Your role | What you were responsible for on the project |
| 5. Project Summary/About this Project | An overview that summarizes the project, goal and results |
| 6. The challenge | What specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points that the project solves. Were there any technical constraints or business KPIs you had to keep in mind? Who are you users and what are their specific needs |
| 7. Solution | What method/process were used to solve specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points? How did features address the objectives? |
| 8. Results | Project success metrics, awards, reflections, project next steps and/or lessons learnt |
Now writing and condensing long texts for these sections can be very challenging. I have included how long each section should be so that you have a guide to your writing length. Let’s walk through each section of the UX Portfolio Case Study template and fill it in.
Length: Project Title (1 line) & Subtitle (1–2 lines)
This one is pretty straightforward. I used the name we had for the project at the agency. I generally like to use the client’s brand name as it is recognizable to recruiters and brief enough to fit any case study cover. I also added a sub-title to further explain what was built for the client and give more context around the project title.
Length:1 line
Unless stated in the title, this helps build more context to who the project was for. This was a commercial project for a client so I wrote the name of the client’s brand.
Length:1 line
When or how long the project was helps the recruiter establish whether this is your most recent work and most importantly, to gauge where your skill level is. Always try to put up work that is recent because it’s an accurate reflection of your skills. This one was a bit of an old one that I had not drafted a case study for.
Length:1–2 lines
This is a section to state everything you did and were responsible for. Recruiters are looking to accurately assess your skills in the context of the entire project’s execution. I state that I was the Senior UX Designer on the project then briefly note down all the activities I did for the project over the course of several months. If you worked with someone on the project make sure to state it.
Length: 1–2 paragraphs
This is a critical section for any reader who does not have a lot of time to read through the entire case study but wants a brief summary of the project, goals, and results. They may be going through a stack of applications and only have a few minutes to scan over one or two projects in your portfolio.
I have kept my summary to three long sentences. The first is the context of the brand. The second touches on the challenge and problem we were attempting to solve. And the last sentence describes the platform this is being built for.
Length: 2–3 paragraphs
This section specifically looks at the problems the project is trying to address. While keeping this paragraph concise I dive into the details of the problem that the client and their user were experiencing. If you are struggling with this part, take a look at your client’s original project brief. The problem you set out to solve will be stated under objectives.
Length: As long as needed
This is the longest and more time consuming section to fill in depending on how long ago the project was and how fresh in your mind it still is. For this section I outlined the design process steps and methods followed during the project. I wrote down the high level project steps but at this point I am already thinking of the the relevant design artifacts recruiters might want to see. Everything that I produced from sketches to visual mockups to prototypes.
Length: 1 paragraph
The critical last section concludes the case study by outlining any project success metrics that were achieved. I was fortunate that we wanted to report back to the client how well the site had performed so this information was dug up from the Google Analytics tracking. In most cases clients are happy with just a launch and its really up to you to follow up and get the project impact.
Okay, now that we have filled in our UX Portfolio Case Study template we can move on to getting our design artifacts together. I am happy with the content I put down and importantly, I have not missed any section.
This part is really up to you and how you tackle it is going to depend on where you are going to host your UX case study. If you have a portfolio site you can put the text we just typed down on a page and fill in the gaps with images and project artifacts.
I have a Behance account where I house my projects and merely need to upload images and write the text in, then publish the portfolio. Taking it a step further I integrate the text and imagery in Sketch/Photoshop than just purely uploading the project’s web screenshots.
If you would like to use my Behance layout your can check out my portfolio kit with pre-made, fully customizable professional artboards for every section of a portfolio.
Key things that I always like to include in my case studies to make them more interactive and engaging:
I like to create a folder structure for housing everything I will need as follows.
Here are some of the final case study design screens with the text we filled out in the UX Portfolio Case Study template.
The intro has most of our UX case study sections covered in one go. Super important for recruiters without a lot of time.
The About and challenge sections come directly after that.
Then we can dive into the work. Here is a tiny bit of the Solution section showcasing a wireframe and UI design.
And lastly the results to round off the case study.
Here is the link to my portfolio and the full project.
If you really enjoy this article and would like to get down to work, download my UX Portfolio Case Study template for free. Its included with the Design Portfolio Layout Guide, which includes 20 online case studies and example scripts for each case study section.
How to fill in the UX Portfolio Case Study template from scratch and I will use an example UX case study from my portfolio.Read more
Your portfolio is the most critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to selling your design skills to recruiters and clients. It’s the single most vital component of any design career move you will ever make. A UX case study is a detailed but summarized presentation of a design project, its goals and objectives, […]Read more
How to fill in the UX Portfolio Case Study template from scratch and I will use an example UX case study from my portfolio.
In my last article, I shared the free UX Portfolio Case Study template that I developed based on over 60 portfolios of successful design hires from Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Twitter, Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Dropbox and the insights of top design recruiters.
We explored what recruiters look for in UX job applications/portfolios and then dived into successfully structuring any UX case study, even conceptual projects.
Today I wanted to go a step further and walk you through how to fill in the UX Portfolio Case Study template from scratch and I will use an example UX case study from my portfolio.
The core idea is to try to break down your case study creation process into a writing component and designing component so that you can tackle each one without getting stuck or overwhelmed.
This also allows you to plan more effectively what design artifacts you will need in your case study. It’s a system by which you can then rapidly roll out multiple case studies without forgetting anything that’s relevant to a recruiter or client.
The UX Portfolio Case Study template has 8 critical sections that recruiters are looking for.
| 1. Project Title & Subtitle | A headline and subtitle that indicates the name and goal of the project |
| 2. Client/Company/Project type | Who was the project for |
| 3. Project date | When did you work on the project |
| 4. Your role | What you were responsible for on the project |
| 5. Project Summary/About this Project | An overview that summarizes the project, goal and results |
| 6. The challenge | What specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points that the project solves. Were there any technical constraints or business KPIs you had to keep in mind? Who are you users and what are their specific needs |
| 7. Solution | What method/process were used to solve specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points? How did features address the objectives? |
| 8. Results | Project success metrics, awards, reflections, project next steps and/or lessons learnt |
Let’s begin.
The UX portfolio project I will use is one I did as a Senior Designer at a digital marketing agency. The brief was to create a responsive website/microsite for an annual financial publication for an Asset Management company.
Now let’s walk through each section of the UX Portfolio Case Study template and fill it in.
Length: Project Title (1 line) & Subtitle (1–2 lines)
This one is pretty simple. I used the name we had for the project at the agency. It’s brief enough to fit any case study cover but does show the brand name, and the nature of the product, a journal. I added a sub-title to further explain what the heading means, and give more context around the project title.
Length:1 line
Unless stated in the title, this helps build more background to who the project was for. This was a commercial project for a client so I wrote the name of the client’s brand.
Length:1 line
When or how long the project was helps the recruiter establish whether this is your most recent work and most importantly, to gauge where your skill level is. Always try to put up work that is recent because it’s an accurate reflection of your skills. This one was a bit of an old one that I had not drafted a case study for.
Length:1–2 lines
This is a section to state everything you did and were responsible for. Recruiters are looking to accurately assess your skills in the context of the entire project’s execution. I state that I was the Senior UX Designer on the project then note down all the activities I did on a high level, for the project over the course of several months.
Length: 1–2 paragraphs
This is a critical section for any reader who does not have a lot of time to read through the entire case study but wants a brief summary of the project, goals, and results. They may be going through a stack of applications and only have a few minutes to scan over one or two projects in your portfolio.
I have kept my summary to three long sentences. The first is the context of the brand. The second touches on the challenge and problem we were attempting to solve. And the last sentence addresses how we would know we had done a good job.
Length: 2–3 paragraphs
This section specifically looks at the problems the project is trying to address. While keeping this paragraph concise I dive into the details of the problem that the client and their user were experiencing.
Length: As long as needed
This is the longest and more time consuming section to fill in depending on how long ago the project was and how fresh in your mind it still is. For this section I outlined the design process steps and methods followed during the project. I wrote down the high level project steps but at this point I am already thinking of the the relevant design artifacts recruiters might want to see. Everything that I produced from sketches to visual mockups to prototypes.
Length: 1 paragraph
The critical last section concludes the case study by outlining any project success metrics that were achieved. I was fortunate that we wanted to report back to the client how well the site had performed so this information was dug up from the Google Analytics tracking. In most cases clients are happy with just a launch and its really up to you to follow up and get the project impact.
Okay, now that we have filled in our UX Portfolio Case Study template we can move on to getting our design artifacts together. I am happy with the content I put down and importantly, I have not missed any section.
This part is really up to you and how you tackle it, is going to depend on where you are going to host your UX case study. If you have a portfolio site you can use the template content on a site page and fill in the gaps with images and project artifacts.
I have a Behance account where I house my projects and merely need to upload images and write the text in, then publish the portfolio. Taking it a step further I integrate the text and imagery in Sketch/Photoshop then just upload the images.
Key things that I always like to include in my case studies to make them more interactive and engaging:
I like to create a folder structure for housing everything I will need as follows.
Here are some of the final design screens with the text we filled out in the UX Portfolio Case Study template. Go to this link to view the full case study.
The intro has most of our UX case study sections covered in one go. Super important for recruiters without a lot of time.
The About and challenge sections come directly after that.
Then we can dive into the work. Here is a tiny bit of the Solution section showcasing a wireframe and UI design.
And lastly the results to round off the case study.
Here is the link to my portfolio and other UX case studies.
If you would like to get down to work, download my UX Portfolio Case Study template for free. Its included with the Design Portfolio Layout Guide, which including 20 online case studies and example scripts for each case study section.
What to read next:
You may be wondering how should you organize a large amount of project information in a case study so that it isn’t overwhelming to recruiters? What information is vital to include in a portfolio case study? Or maybe you are just struggling to bringing together your wireframes, strategies and sections into a clean, attractive narrative…Read more
Your portfolio is the most critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to selling your design skills to recruiters and clients. It’s the single most vital component of any design career move you will ever make. A UX case study is a detailed but summarized presentation of a design project, its goals and objectives, […]Read more
Axure RP is a rapid prototyping design tool used to make highly interactive HTML prototypes. Sketch is a vector-based design tool widely used in the design industry to create visual designs and prototypes.
Continue reading “Axure vs Sketch: What’s the best prototyping tool for a UX Designer”Axure RP is a rapid prototyping design tool used to make highly interactive HTML prototypes. Axure has been around for a while and built a strong community that expands the tool’s capabilities through third-party widget libraries.
Salary should never be the driving factor for getting into a field but it’s an important topic that definitely needs to be addressed.
How much does a UX designer earn? If you are just starting out, how much can you make as an entry-level junior UX designer?
The goal here is not to convince you to start a whole career because of how much you can make. That would be foolish because you might end up hating your job, being constantly under pressure, or in a dead-end job situation just for the money.
This is the reason I wrote two articles that I highly recommend you read before you get started in UX design. 8 Personality traits you need to be a great fit for UX Design role and secondly, what a UX Designer ACTUALLY does.
Remember, as long as you are really good at what you do, you will get paid really well regardless of the field you are in.
This article is to get you informed about the current UX Design salaries for the main purpose of salary discussions or when negotiating a promotion. The caveat is that you are not guaranteed to earn the amounts stated because it depends on your skills level, the company you join, and the location you might be working at.
Okay, now we got that out of the way.
Let’s talk about how much you could be making as a UX designer.
I am going to break this article down by three locations, the USA, UK, and India, the top-paying companies in those locations and we will explore junior and senior-level salaries. These salaries are the average total compensation including bonuses, overtime pay, and based on stats provided by Payscale.
Let’s begin.
Entry-level and less than a year: $62,558 based on 311 salaries
Early UX Designer career 1–4 years: $71,258 based on 3,794 salaries
Mid-level to Senior UX Designer 5–9 years: $83,519 based on 1,207 salaries
Senior UX Designer 10–19 years: $94,893 based on 488 salaries
I know. That’s a lot of money but it makes sense considering the biggest tech companies are based in the US and how the UX field directly contributes to a company’s bottom line.
Looking at some of the cities that a UX Designer can earn above the national average, San Francisco, California leads the way with one being able to make 31% more than the national average salary.
San Francisco, California 32% more than the national average
Seattle, Washington 13% more than the national average
New York, New York 7% than the national average
Los Angeles, California 3% than the national average
Austin, Texas 2% than the national average
Boston, Massachusetts is at the national average
Chicago, Illinois 5% less than the national average
Now let’s take a look at some of the highest paying companies for UX Designer roles. The majority are tech companies.
Google, Inc. $123k
Amazon.com Inc $116k
Microsoft Corp $113k
International Business Machines (IBM) Corp. $86k
The Walt Disney Company $84k
Accenture $82k
Capital One Financial Corp $80k
Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. $54k
Entry-level UX Designer less than a year: £26,068 based on 34 salaries
Early UX Designer career 1–4 years: £30,343 based on 532 salaries
Mid-level to Senior UX Designer 5–9 years: £39,077 based on 173 salaries
Senior UX Designer 10–19 years: £43,028 based on 79 salaries
Looking at some of the cities that a UX Designer can earn above the national average, Cambridge, England leads the way with one being able to make 14.6% more than the national average salary.
Cambridge, England: Cambridgeshire 15% more than the national average
London, England: London 14% more than the national average
Manchester, England: Manchester 6% less than the national average
Bristol, England: Bristol 10% less than the national average
Glasgow, Scotland: Glasgow 12% less than the national average
Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh 17% less than the national average
Now let’s take a look at how much some companies pay for UX Designer roles.
UCAS £31k
Moneysupermarket.com £25k
Entry-level UX Designer less than a year: ₹441,375 based on 33 salaries
Early UX Designer career 1–4 years: ₹601,001 based on 275 salaries
Mid-level to Senior UX Designer 5–9 years: ₹973,296 based on 113 salaries
Senior UX Designer 10–19 years: ₹1,285,470 based on 49 salaries
Looking at some of the cities that a UX Designer can earn above the national average, Bangalore, Karnataka leads the way with one being able to make a massive 37.7% more than the national average salary.
Bangalore, Karnataka 38% more than the national average
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 4% more than the national average
New Delhi, Delhi 1% more than the national average
Mumbai, Maharashtra 9% less than the national average
Delhi, Delhi 15% less than the national average
Chennai, Tamil Nadu 21% less than the national average
Pune, Maharashtra 26% less than the national average
Now let’s take a look at how much some companies pay for UX Designer roles.
Accenture ₹1m
SAP Labs India ₹1m
Tata Consultancy Services Limited ₹924k
InfoSys Limited ₹720k
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp ₹713k
If you are convinced UX Design might be the career for you, I have design exercises that will help you start putting together a portfolio of well thought out case studies without actual work experience.
This is the fourth design portfolio project for UI and UX designers. A detailed client brief that is time-boxed, detailed, and crafted to give you a hands-on experience of doing a real project. Each portfolio project is meant to help you create work you can add to your portfolio.
The other projects in the series from UX Design Mastery
UX/UI portfolio projects for beginners #1 Blog Website
UX/UI portfolio projects for beginners #2: eCommerce site
UX/UI portfolio projects for beginners #3: Travel App
My first job in design was for a small design agency as the Lead UX/UI designer.
I met the CEO over coffee for my interview and he hired me on the spot and asked me to name my salary.
That totally took me by surprise because it meant I had successfully transitioned from being a Java Developer to being headhunted for a design role within a year. He had pointed to the fact that my portfolio had demonstrated enough creative potential to get the job done rather than work experience.
You see, I had not done an internship, gone to a design school, or worked in a design company but I still had great portfolio projects that I had conceptualized from nothing. The design projects were detailed, tackled a real problem, and demonstrated my design process and design skills.
The same thing could happen to you. I was fortunate that I had practiced my design skills to the point that someone could see the value I could bring to their company.
A key takeaway is I had designed solutions to projects aligned with what I actually wanted to do on the job.
So if you want to work for an agency do a number of campaign projects. If you want to work for an app development house, do a number of mobile app designs. Treat all your conceptual projects as gateways to where you want to be. This is what these design projects are for.
Today’s project is to create a responsive agency website for desktop and mobile.
Included in each design brief is the following:
This time we look at an agency website project.
Client
Choose any design agency brand of your liking
Timeline
2–3 weeks
Create a responsive website that allows an agency to:
• Market who they are, what they do and what they stand for
• Showcase their work case studies and awards they have won
• Contacted by potential clients
• List available positions and receive job applications
Please design a design agency website for desktop (1200px wide and mobile view 365px wide)
The site must load quickly hence any interactions or large imagery must be kept to a minimum.
These should be both desktop and mobile screens
• 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.
References that the company would like their 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.
I don’t want to see every piece of work that you have ever done. Pick your favorite pieces. It doesn’t need to be for the most famous or biggest clients as long as you are proud of it and want to talk about it.
I would like to see more personal projects in portfolios. The work that you did in the best of conditions and with full artistic freedom
We want to see work that is consistently good. The best portfolios take a well-rounded and curated approach to showing work. Ideally, we’d see a handful of solid logos, examples of web design, examples of illustration, and some editorial work.
They should briefly describe the work and the particular role they played. We get a little nervous when someone’s portfolio includes a lot of team projects. We want to clearly understand someone’s strengths and weaknesses before we hire them.
Telling the story of your work — how it all relates, why it’s important — matters. Additionally, it’s important for designers to show that they understand the goals of their work and that those goals touch on both user and business needs. A pet peeve of mine is when there really isn’t a good reason behind the work, or the designer doesn’t show any interest in or understanding of its impact on the business or user.
If you would like a portfolio project PDF of this design project along with other projects you can download it below. Included is a portfolio project layout template that outlines how to present your project your final case study.
My goal is to help you decide if a UX career is something you REALLY want to pursue without investing too much time and money upfront. You might be looking to transition from a different field into UX design but don’t have the work experience or relevant educational background.
Well, I am glad you are here.
A UX designer does a range of activities. From presenting solutions, analyzing tasks and activities, building prototypes & wireframes, gathering requirements, specifying interaction design to conducting usability studies.
In case you have not read it, the first article in this series on getting started in UX Design, was a personality checklist on whether UX would be a good fit for you.
I believe your personality has a huge say on how successful you will be in your career. The more aligned your personality is to what you do, the easier it will be to continuously learn the craft and execute it at a very high level.
On to the next checkpoint.
The second article in this series looks at breaking down some of the most common on-the-job UX design activities you must be prepared to do to be successful in a UX role. Obviously, some of the UX activities will vary depending on what sort of company you will join (agency, software development company, etc), your UX project budget, how big the team is, and how much time you have on a project.
Fortunately, these UX activities are taken from a study of over 1000 UX professionals conducted by the Nielsen Norman group. So you will get a general but realistic overview of UX work.
So let’s get started.
As a UX designer, you will be required to communicate your ideas and design solutions verbally, on paper, in a slide presentation, in a written document, as annotations, as a wireframe, and as a prototype.
It sounds straight forward but what a lot of designers don’t realize is how unclear communication can result in your solution being completely misunderstood by clients, developers, or project stakeholders.
Here are some quick tips that I personally use in order to communicate effectively when presenting design solutions:
– Explain the problem — what is the background or context to the solution being presented and why is it important
– Try to tell a story or scenario around the solution that will better explain what is being presented
– Explicitly ask if everyone understands to make sure your audience is on the same page and no one is lagging behind
– Intentionally pause. Don’t rush through your presentation but create moments that encourage feedback and questions
– Repeat any feedback you receive. This will help ensure everyone understands what changes will be made.
Every now and again you will be required to defend your design decisions to a client, your team, or a product owner. A lot of designers find it hard to justify their design decisions because they, unfortunately, approach design as an art. You looking to create the coolest interface which is beautifully designed. Though that might sound reasonable, it not the best approach. You will end up frustratingly scaling back your design to something more pragmatic or arguing about subjective things like color and imagery.
A better approach to persuading colleagues about a design approach is to test it with real users or back it up with research data. Find out what the target user group thinks about your design, make changes, and bring that into your design presentation.
An important part of the research phase of a project is to immerse yourself in what your user is trying to achieve. This is done by breaking down the project into key activities/tasks that you require the target user to perform. An analysis of the current state of those activities is needed to understand the pain points and opportunities that exist and should be addressed.
Some of the most common ways I use to analyze a task is to:
– Gather and interpret analytical data from Google analytics or heatmaps
– Run an audit and perform the task yourself
– Watch a real end-user perform the task
Probably the most well known and often overemphasized UX activity. I do enjoy this part but I always create low fidelity deliverables that focus on user flows and functionality. I don’t want to spend time thinking about fonts, icons, colors, and imagery. I am fortunate to work with a UI designer so I definitely don’t have to worry about that part. Though important in the presentation of your solution, wireframing and prototyping builds upon key insights discovered in the research/discovery phase of the project.
When we look at the full project timeline as a UX designer, you will probably spend more time researching and testing than crafting a beautiful prototype. The key here is not to produce polished designs but is to rapidly illustrate your ideas clearly enough for a UI designer/developer to understand and work from.
As a UX Designer, you have to work with others on topics you might not have any experience in. For instance, you may be asked to redesign an investment banking workflow but not have any financial experience. It will be up to you to seek out this information from experts and end-users involved with that field through whiteboard sessions, UX design workshops, interviews, and on-the-job walk-throughs. You must approach each project as a novice and be willing to learn from others.
This activity ties into the collaboration with subject matter experts. At the start of a project, you will be required to gather as much information about the problem you are trying to solve in order to tackle it effectively.
You can go about this through
– Interviews
– Surveys
– Analytical data
– Testing sessions
– Audit
– UX Design workshops
When creating prototypes, you will be called upon as a UX Designer to specify the actual interactions a user will encounter. Depending on the size of your design team, this could possibly be done by someone with more expertise in micro-interactions and animation and your role in that setting is to ensure the interactions add and not detract from what the user is attempting to do.
A great way to learn is by
– Finding inspiration online (Google “micro-interaction” or “web animation”)
– Learning an animation tool
– Recreate interactions you find using the animation tool
Running an in-person usability study is probably one of the key skills a UX designer should master. It requires one to be organized, comfortable with guiding the user, asking the right questions, ability to adjust based on the user responses, and keeping silent when necessary.
One must be able to watch the time but make sure to get the insights they need for their project research. Lastly, wrap up the session well by asking the participant to do a post-questionnaire, and thanking them for their time.
All the research, data, findings, and ideas can be translated into artifacts that help stakeholders, clients, and developers better understand what needs to be built. Storyboards outline how a user’s story will unfold shot by shot, for the purpose of pre-visualizing interactions.
User journeys are a series of steps a user goes through to accomplish a task while Information Architecture is the design of data in a way that makes it easy to build for developers and navigate for users.
This involves personally running through a website or application and marking it against heuristics or best practices. This helps uncover existing problem areas and identify opportunities for improvement. Issues that are identified are categorized into high, medium and low levels of priority for resolving. To be able to run such an evaluation one has to be well versed with best practices and key user goals.
Quantitative data is very useful in understanding what users are currently doing. From it, you can establish conversion rates, understand page performance, and uncover themes/patterns. Therefore learning a tool like Google Analytics will level-up your research skills drastically.
As you can see, the UX role is multi-faceted but it’s important to know when starting out as a junior you won’t be expected to do all these activities alone. Also depending on the size of the company and project budget, you may only be able to perform a subset of these activities.
Personally, I have done all these activities as a Senior Designer and employ them quite frequently on every project.
If you really enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed creating it, show your love, share it, make it clap and leave a comment on which activities you do the most.
Your portfolio is the most critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to selling your design skills to recruiters and clients. It’s the single most vital component of any design career move you will ever make.
A UX case study is a detailed but summarized presentation of a design project, its goals and objectives, the research methods used, the process to find a solution and the results achieved.
I hope to share with you a UX portfolio Case Study template for making your portfolio simpler and less overwhelming with the aim of getting you a job interview and potentially a higher paying job. I happen to have stumbled upon it through trial and error but it has resulted in me being headhunted for my last three Senior roles in UX at two agencies and a product company.
But first let’s start at the beginning.
When I was trying to design my portfolio, I used to spend countless hours digging up relevant work from past projects, downloading a ton of device mockups, and implementing every tactic from articles on portfolios that you can find.
The problem with that was it had been months and I was still not done. Every little inspiration I found, seemed to demand a new version. I also was not getting any interviews for the job I had applied for.
How long should a portfolio case study be? What should I include? I felt stuck and overwhelmed by every single detail.
You know.
That queasy, gut-twisting anxiety in the pit of your stomach won’t go away no matter how much you tweak your portfolio.
By spending time studying other design portfolios of not just every designer but successful hires, I was finally able to come up with a system that covered what recruiters actually wanted to see.
Recruiters spend a short amount of time on each candidate’s portfolio, scanning for information in the case studies that relates to the role’s skills and responsibilities.
To stress how each important your case study detail and layout is, let’s look at how two recruiter personas who have different business needs might look at the information provided in a designer’s case study.
Recruiter 1
CEO
Works at small mobile app company, limited staff.
Results orientated, only has 5 minutes to look through a portfolio.
Looking for a freelancer/part-time designer.
A quick view of a candidate’s case study should answer:
– Is their work relevant to what we do?
– How much work did they do on a project
– Can they work unsupervised?
– Have they seen a project through to launch?
Recruiter 2
Creative Director
Looking for a full-time designer
Works for a large agency.
Leads and supervises the design team.
Process orientated, has time for a detailed case study.
A quick view of a candidate’s case study should answer
– Is their work relevant to what we do?
– Is this their most recent work and skills level
– Do they understand what problem they were solving (big-picture thinking)
-Did the solution solve the problem they sort out to address
These two recruiters require different forms of information and detail from your case study. It is up to you to make sure the case studies you create cover what they are looking for in order to land interviews.
Don’t just put a portfolio case study together and hope it will be good enough.
The secret to a portfolio case study that can get you an interview and explode your career opportunities lies in a creation process that is aligned with your audience’s needs.
That’s why I want to share with you this UX Portfolio Case Study template from UX Design Mastery. It is based on over 60 portfolios of successful design hires from Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Twitter, Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Dropbox and the insights of top design recruiters.
The secret sauce:
The core idea is to try to separate your case study creation process into a writing component and designing component so that you can tackle each one without getting stuck or overwhelmed.
This template is meant to help outline all the text that is going to be in your case study that recruiters/clients are looking for.
This ensures that your case study has a good narrative and understandable structure. This also allows you to plan more effectively what design artifacts you will need in your case study. It’s a system by which you can rapidly roll out multiple case studies without forgetting anything that’s relevant to a recruiter or client.
The UX Portfolio Case Study template has 8 critical sections that recruiters are looking for.
| 1. Project Title & Subtitle | A headline and subtitle that indicates the name and goal of the project |
| 2. Client/Company/Project type | Who was the project for |
| 3. Project date | When did you work on the project |
| 4. Your role | What you were responsible for on the project |
| 5. Project Summary/About this Project | An overview that summarizes the project, goal and results |
| 6. The challenge | What specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points that the project solves. Were there any technical constraints or business KPIs you had to keep in mind? Who are you users and what are their specific needs |
| 7. Solution | What method/process were used to solve specific problem, user needs, business requirements and/or pain points? How did features address the objectives? |
| 8. Results | Project success metrics, awards, reflections, project next steps and/or lessons learnt |
Length: Project Title (1 line) & Subtitle (1–2 lines)
A short concise headline that couples the name of the brand/application/client and goal of the project. A lot of designers tend to rush the naming of their project but it is crucial in capturing the attention of its reader. It is the first thing a recruiter is going to read to decide whether or not to carry on reading your UX case study. Make sure it is clear, understandable, and does not use technical jargon. The subtitle is optional but a great way to build more context around the Project title.
Length:1 line
Unless stated in the title, this helps build more background to who the project was for. If the project was not a commercial project for a client or brand, this is where you can state that it was a conceptual project, a design challenge, or a practice project.
Length:1 line
When or how long the project was helps the recruiter establish whether this is your most recent work and most importantly, to gauge where your skill level is. Always try to put up work that is recent because it’s an accurate reflection of your skills.
Length:1–2 lines
This is a section to state everything you did and were responsible for. Recruiters are looking to accurately assess your skills in the context of the entire project’s execution. Did you work with a team, did you work unsupervised to create the project deliverables. Recruiters can make an informed decision about whether you will need help on the job or hit the ground running.
Length: 1–2 paragraphs
This is a critical section for any reader who does not have a lot of time to read through the entire case study but wants a brief summary of the project, goals, and results. They may be going through a stack of applications and only have a few minutes to scan over one or two projects in your portfolio. Usually the first two. If nothing stands out or if the work is unclear then they will quickly move on.
That covers the introductory part of your case study. Now we get to the body of the case study.
Length: 2–3 paragraphs
This section specifically looks at the problems the project is trying to address. What are the business requirements, user needs, pain points that the project solves? Who are the end-users and core target market? What platforms was the project for and where there any technical constraints or business KPIs you had to keep in mind?
Length: As long as needed
This section is going to be the longest as it showcases how the project goals where achieved. Firstly, outline the design process steps and methods followed during the project outlines the layout of this section. Show your overall project steps, why you chose the methods you used. Recruiters want to see all the relevant design artifacts that you produced from sketches to visual mockups to prototypes. Secondly, show how the project evolved through reviews and user feedback. I have put together a table that will hopefully guide your storytelling around each design deliverable. For each one speak on how the work evolved, was iterated on, or revised based on testing and stakeholder input.
Here are some examples for showing the overall process:
Length: 1 paragraph
The critical last section concludes the case study by outlining any project success metrics that were achieved, awards that were won. Here are some example results that one commonly finds in a design portfolio and how you can phrase it.
| Result Type | Example Impact |
|---|---|
| Improved Task Completion | Task success rate increased from 65% to 92% after redesign. |
| Reduced Drop-off | Checkout drop-off decreased by 30% after simplifying the form flow. |
| Increased Engagement | 40% more users interacted with the feature after UI overhaul. |
| Faster Task Performance | Average time to complete task reduced from 3 min to 1.5 min. |
| User Satisfaction Boost | CSAT score increased from 3.2 to 4.5 post-launch. |
| Error Reduction | 70% fewer user input errors after redesigning form validation. |
| Revenue Uplift | 15% increase in conversions after improving product detail pages. |
| Support Load Decrease | 25% drop in support tickets related to account setup after UX improvements. |
| Mobile Optimization Gains | Bounce rate on mobile dropped by 18% after responsive redesign. |
| Developer Handoff Speed | Reduced back-and-forth in dev handoff by 50% using component-based design. |
In the case of a project that is not live, reflections and the project’s next steps are sufficient to round up the case study. Try to share any lessons that you learned to demonstrate you are invested in both the project’s life cycle and your career development.
If you would like to get down to work, download my UX Portfolio Case Study template for free. Its included with the Design Portfolio Layout Guide, which including 20 online case studies and example scripts for each case study section.
How to fill in the UX Portfolio Case Study template from scratch and I will use an example UX case study from my portfolio.Read more
You may be wondering how should you organize a large amount of project information in a case study so that it isn’t overwhelming to recruiters? What information is vital to include in a portfolio case study? Or maybe you are just struggling to bringing together your wireframes, strategies and sections into a clean, attractive narrative…Read more
This practice project/Client brief is the third one in this series from UX Design Mastery after the one for a Blog website and an eCommerce project.
Design Portfolio Projects
Design Portfolio Projects
Included in each design brief is the following:
Creating a portfolio project is hard work.
I still remember when I did not have a single project in my portfolio that would really make me stand out and get noticed by recruiters.
I had just left my job as a Java Developer and was about to put all my effort into starting a design career.
One of the very first successful projects I created was a conceptual mobile app for a local airline. I had recently been on a trip which was frustratingly delayed and poorly communicated to passengers.
So I decided to creatively express my opinions through a conceptual project and it was responsible for me getting hired for my first design job.
Its also my most appreciated project .
I hope this travel app project you work on, provides you with as many opportunities as I have received.
Client: Choose any travel brand of your liking
Timeline: 1–2 Weeks
Objectives
Create a mobile app design that can:
• Allow a user to book a flight, a hotel and car on a specific date for different destinations
• Find the best deals on flights, hotels and car hires
• Ability to select holiday activities
• Organize all travel plans into one itinerary
• Notifications
Platform
Please design a travel app for either iOS or Android. So we require mobile screens. Pay attention to
iOS guidelines
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/visual-design/adaptivity-and-layout/
Android guidelines
https://material.io/design/usability/accessibility.html#hierarchy
Target Audience
References
Please conduct some research on the following travel apps that we love and get ideas for functionality and features to include
Deliverables
• Research (refer to references provided)
• Highlight 3 enhancements or unique features you have included to make our app stand out and solve user pain points
• Sketches of initial ideas
• Wireframes
• Visual mockups screens of
⁃ App Onboarding
⁃ Home screen where a user can book a Hotel, a Flight, a Car or an activity in a popular city
⁃ Listing page of Hotels
⁃ Map view showing hotels location
⁃ Itinerary screen
⁃ Possible notifications
• Results section: Feedback from testing with 5 random people
• Fonts: Brand related
• Colors: Brand related
• Link to this project
Nice to have
Video walkthrough (Screen record using QuickTime an Invision prototype interacation)
Pro-tip
Go through an entire booking experience to understand how the app is design.
Advice from recruiters
I wish more portfolio websites included little descriptions of what the designer’s role was in a specific project, or even pointed out some specific problems or personal thoughts about aspects of their designs. Too many portfolios now are just vanity shots and client name-dropping without actually communicating what was done.
James Cabrera, Senior Product Designer, Refinery29
Going the extra mile and making sure it’s easy to consume, well-presented, and filled with helpful context about your projects tells us a lot about your communication skills. Ideally a portfolio should be more than just a collection of pretty thumbnails and mockups — it should speak to your problem solving skills.
Ryan Le Roux, Metalab
If you’re just starting out as a designer, a good alternative to unsolicited redesigns are personal projects. These self-initiated projects are a great way to build up your design and product skills, while also putting something out into the world for people to use. You’ll learn a ton from the experience of launching something and the feedback you’ll get from your users will definitely make you a better designer.
Elyse Viotto, Shopify
If you are interested in ting the PDF download of the travel app project and all my extra example case studies download below.
