If you’re a user experience designer searching for work, the one thing you’ll need to land your next position or freelance job is a great portfolio. Without one, potential employers won’t be able to fully grasp your breadth of talent or experience in the field. If you’re now wondering how to construct the best UX design portfolio, we have a few tips to help you assemble all the necessary components:
Your versatility and specialty
If you have a large body of work to draw from, make sure you’re highlighting your different assets with each entry in your portfolio. This way, you can make sure you’re hitting important points for a variety of employers. However, don’t try too hard to seem like you are a jack of all trades. UX Mastery refers to this issue as pretending to be “a UX unicorn.”
“Don’t try too hard to seem like you are a jack of all trades.”
If you have only general knowledge in one skill but expertise in another, don’t be afraid to let your portfolio emphasize that specialty and own up to the areas you may not know as well. This can help if you’re looking for a job in a particular industry. In that case, employers may greatly appreciate your extensive knowledge.
Your problem-solving ability
UX goes far beyond simply designing an interface. It’s about simultaneously addressing user and client needs. So, to set yourself apart from other candidates, your portfolio should demonstrate how you’ve been able to use your designs to solve problems
The Next Web recommends doing this through case studies, as they can explain exactly how you addressed a specific problem and worked to find the solution. The site points out that an effective case study will cover the problem, solution, personalization and results.
Your process
What makes hunting for a UX design job unique is that it’s not enough to just show the final product. You’ll need to let your potential employers in on your process as well. Your portfolio should tell the story of a project, ideally through screenshots or notes explaining how you tackled certain problems and what you were thinking with the design. This provides an important insight to how you operate as a designer and what kind of work your future employers can anticipate from you.
However, make sure you’re brief with this aspect of your portfolio. Hiring managers are likely looking through countless portfolios and don’t want to sift through pages of work and lengthy explanation to learn about you. The quicker you can portray this message, the better.