Maximizing Your Potential: Essential Tips for Crafting a Powerful UX Design Portfolio

Jason Zhou, Jason Zhou at UXDX Community: Mastering AI Tools and Cognitive Insights for a Captivating UX Portfolio. Video: https://youtu.be/SNYjvTKcr3A

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Tip one: build your own product

[00:00:00] Good morning everyone, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are. Today I'm going to talk about the UX portfolio and how to maximize your portfolio with some essential tips. I'm currently a lead[?] product designer at PayPal. I have been dedicating a lot of time mentoring in the UX community, including ADPList and USPA[?]. Each year the most requested section is a portfolio review, especially as it has been so much of a challenge for a lot of junior designers in the market right now. For them, having a strong portfolio can be the key to getting hired. However, with so much competition in the industry, it's harder to stand out from the crowd. So today I would love to share four essential tips that aim to help you maximize the potential of your portfolio.

[00:00:50] Number one, build your own product. A lot of designers didn't treat the portfolio like an art. Actually portfolio design is more than a job hunting tool, it is the first impression of you and your design skills. So a well designed portfolio will help you increase the chance to get an interview.

[00:01:10] So treat your portfolio like your own product. Make sure it's well designed, clean and easy to navigate in each project. I have seen a lot of candidates' portfolios in the past, and I found some people's website still uses a third party website domain, some even have broken links. So make sure you carefully treat your own product and make it look professional.

[00:01:33] Second, leverage the power of your About page. You are more than just designers. What other skills or hobbies do you like? For me, I like to cook, so I put a lot of cooking images in my portfolio. Remember that hiring managers like to learn more about you besides UX design, so make sure you become your own life designer first.

Tip two: embracing creativity

[00:01:54] Number two is embracing creativity. A lot of people have questions related to the content of the website. If there is too much information, should I remove it, make it simple? Or, I don't think people are going to read it. I got a lot of questions on this, but here's what I can tell you: nothing is too much, you should provide enough context to help people understand your work.

[00:02:23] So here is my advice. First, go express your process, then organize your information, keep what is the most important. There are some techniques, such as highlight the info you think is most important for people to read, or use bullet points. Be concise and highlight the design thinking, that is the most important. Don't just talk, use visuals such as animations, images, GIFs or video to express the idea.

[00:02:51] Here's another example, what I have in my work. So first I highlight the process, how I start with the pain point to the design opportunity. Second, add the key takeaways. The reason I add key takeaways is to help people understand what I learned in this step and how it influenced the next phase of my design process. This also helps the hiring managers to quickly understand how the design process is going.

[00:03:19] And this is another example, use the visual aid. So I have a lot of images as to what I want to express. For me, it's always about balance. I saw a lot of people's web is all about images, some people's web is all about text. You don't want your work all about images, all about text, you also don't want your work to be hard to read. So be smart about it and then make sure it's all balanced well.

Tip three: the power of storytelling

[00:03:44] So number three is the power of storytelling. Storytelling is the key to make your portfolio stand out and engage potential employers. I noticed a lot of designers' work is pretty interesting, but the story is not good enough to make it stand out.

[00:04:04] So here is what you need to do. First, start with the problem statement. Make sure you state that first, so people know what you are facing. Second, please think something different, beyond the linear storytelling. What I mean by that is, a lot of people's case study goes from the problem to research to design. It makes sense, but it also doesn't make sense, because you're making everything look too perfect. However, UX is not about perfect. You can do more than three rounds of research to redefine the problem. You may encounter some challenges during the design process that all require you to jump back to do another research. So what I want to see here is to make sure you show the uniqueness of your work, but also it has to make sense.

[00:04:54] And here's an example. So for start with the problem statement, I have this here for people to easily understand the problem that I'm facing. Here's another example for storytelling. I had one case study, then I had to do another user research to figure out what went wrong. But that's the most interesting part I did, because I learned so much during the iterating process, and especially when redefining the problem or refining the problem statement.

[00:05:23] As I previously mentioned, it has to make sense. So if you didn't do a second round of research, you shouldn't include it. Because all the work you did is to create the better solution and show people your design thinking. I'm pretty much sure when you are doing your work you have something special and challenging in your mind that you can showcase to further demonstrate your design thinking.

[00:05:48] And finally, show the impact. Who you work with, what's the result and what's the next step, how your work impacts your final design. And make sure you have evidence to show that, because it is important not only to show you are a great designer, but also that you have the ability to influence your design and to take it to the next level.

Tip four: uniqueness in your case study

[00:06:09] Tip number four, uniqueness in your case study. Everyone's work is unique, and showing unique work is super important. Your portfolio should make people remember you. Be creative and use all the points I previously mentioned to make it for the best.

[00:06:25] Some key mindsets over here. List your advantage. If you're good at research, think how you can show it in front of the audience. If you're good at design systems, make sure you show it. So be confident and be bold. I would say it always helps you to think about those kinds of mindsets in your mind.

[00:06:48] And finally I want to provide a fantastic resource. I know a lot of designers use it, I know a lot of researchers use it, and I also provide all these great resources to my mentees in the mentorship programs. So it is cc.com[?]. In this website a lot of designers post their portfolio in there, and most of them are from the tech companies. I viewed a lot of designers' work, they are pretty interesting. The reason why I share it here is, I want all of you who are not really sure what you are going to do for portfolios to observe their work, to observe all these design processes they have, and then easily you can just copy some mindset into your work.

[00:07:34] The most important part is to make sure you understand your own advantage, you show uniqueness and show impact and show everything about you. And that is how you maximize your potential work and to get potentially hired in the future opportunities. And that's all I want to share today, and really thank you for your listening. I hope all these tips help you with your portfolio design, and best luck for your job hunting. Thank you.

Q&A: showing your own contribution

[00:08:04] Host: Excellent, thank you Jason. That really sings home to me, because I actually end up looking at a lot of portfolios, and there's a couple of things that you realize, that the person hasn't thought about the customer of the portfolio, they're not treating it like a product. So taking that kind of different view of your portfolio, you can make it a lot more effective. So thank you for sharing that. If anybody has any questions, please do post them on whichever channel you're watching on and I'll pass it through to Jason.

[00:08:39] Host: One of the things that I always struggle with when looking at it is what was the relative contribution of the person, because it's all great having this amazing case study, but as a person looking at the portfolio I always struggle to figure out how much did Jason contribute to this versus the rest of the entire team. So how do you think people can convey that information a bit more?

[00:09:05] Jason: Yeah, definitely. I think that's a lot of the problem, a lot of case studies showing you as a designer but you involve so much. But what I would say is, you definitely have to highlight yourself. First you have to make sure you understand who you really are. Are you a designer, are you a researcher, what kind of work are you doing and what kind of role are you looking for? If you are a researcher and you're looking for a research job, you should definitely highlight more the important part of the research side. But if you're a product designer, you do design, visual, research, you should highlight more the uniqueness and challenge part of your piece.

[00:09:51] Jason: So, what is the one single feature that you were involved in most and made the most impact? It can be a small feature, it can be a big feature, it can be something that you never solved before. So highlight this in front of everybody, because people already know you are a good designer, you know how to design, but they want to know more about why you are different than other people and what kind of unique skill you have.

[00:10:16] Jason: So use the technique I mentioned, highlight it and build it, and you can even add animation or videos. Don't be afraid, like people don't watch it. If I'm a hiring manager, I actually watch a lot of the videos people share on the portfolio. I learn so much, it works, so it's better for me to understand, okay, this person is something like I'm looking for for my team or not. So I think that's super important, and you always have to think about it before you start making your portfolio, and list everything. And make sure you don't just follow a linear process to talk about your work.

Q&A: conveying soft skills

[00:10:52] Host: Yeah. And the other question I have is just around the soft skills, because they're often as important in how effective you can be in the delivery of your job. Do you have any recommendations, because it's a very hard thing to convey your communication skills? Everybody lists down "great communicator" and things like that, but is there any advice that you can give people that can take it to the next level and really showcase their skills?

[00:11:20] Jason: Yeah, for soft skills like communication and collaboration, I would say there are two ways you can convey this skill, during the interview or your portfolio. For the portfolio, I always tell people, just make sure you have some images, you have something to relate to your soft skill. Like if you collaborate with a researcher, a product designer, another product designer, a product manager, stakeholders, make sure you highlight it, and how you work with them and how you actually guide this process.

[00:11:50] Jason: So it is more important, you just need to balance a little bit more. You don't want to show everything about how you work with your product managers without showing a lot of design process. But you also don't want to show, okay, it's a design process, and then people feel like, are you a lonely designer, are you a solo designer, I'm not really sure. So at least have something, it can be a mention.

[00:12:14] Jason: Everyone is just like, I need to have something, is there a perfect example? Actually no, there's no perfect example. I had a lot of cases where people have struggled in working with a product manager finding the solutions, have struggled to convey ideas to stakeholders, engineering partners. It's something like they don't like to talk about it, but that part is the most interesting part, you should mention it. Because everything, it's not perfect. A lot of people want to make everything perfect, but I will tell you nothing's perfect. I'm really interested in how you solved this challenge.

[00:12:45] Jason: And another way you can convey this soft skill is during the interview and portfolio review process. That is a more direct way, because people you interact with can quickly understand your communication skill, are you a good communicator. Show more about this, talk more and not just talking about your case. So those are the two ways you can actually convey this kind of information, during the interview or making your portfolio. I think it's really efficient, it really works well.

Q&A: success metrics for a portfolio

[00:13:15] Host: Yeah, excellent, that's some great advice there. And we have a question from Cindy. She's saying, and I really like this question because of the framing: if we treat it as a product, what are the success metrics? Because you tend to need to iterate on your product to get it right. So what are the metrics that we can use to validate that our product is working?

[00:13:41] Jason: Yeah, I would say, treat the product, you have to make sure your product is perfect. Of course, matching the metrics is important. Especially, I would suggest you to find a mentor to present the work in front of them, because a lot of people just don't really practice and then go to the interview. And I think getting the feedback is so much important. Getting feedback for projects is important, but also getting feedback on the portfolio website is also important. I think a lot of people just want to show a case study but without presenting who you are first.

[00:14:25] Jason: So I think the way you can measure is definitely to find a mentor or find professional people to constantly provide you advice, and then you use the advice to practice for interviews and to gain more feedback. And then you make sure you're iterating your product, like you always change your products, change your images, change how you lay this out.

[00:14:49] Jason: I always get a lot of questions like, what kind of case study should I put on my portfolio, I have an existing case study. That sense is like, you need to make sure you understand what case study you want to use to make your work look amazing, to make your portfolio look amazing. And more important is to observe how people interact with your portfolio. I got a lot of questions like, oh, should I put it over there, should I put it over there? I was like, I don't know, observe it. Send this to your friends, send it to your professor, send this to other people, let them see if they have any trouble seeing your case study, if they have any trouble understanding, are you a designer, a researcher?

[00:15:34] Jason: So everything is in all these resources available for you, especially, you know, we have so many resources right now, and you definitely can find out the way to continue iterating, reading more about your case study, more important for your portfolio at all, to show more of your outstanding skills you have. So that's kind of my thought process for this. I know there's a lot of kinds of feedback for me during my career journey, like how I design. There's no right or wrong, so it's always about what is best for you.

[00:16:14] Host: Yeah, excellent. As you were explaining that I was thinking of the analogy of, it's not a B2C product, it's not where you're going to collect massive amounts of data, it's more of a niche B2B product where you have to go in and do targeted interviews to validate the effectiveness of your product.

[00:16:35] Jason: Exactly, yeah.

[00:16:36] Host: I don't have any more questions coming in, so I would like to thank you. I thought that was a really interesting topic, and timely at the moment, because unfortunately we know the market isn't as great as it was a few years ago, so hopefully some people out there can get some tips and help improve their portfolios. Thank you very much Jason.

[00:17:02] Jason: Thank you, yeah, appreciate it.