Whether you’re a recent graduate or a seasoned veteran of user experience design or research, having a portfolio is one of the biggest factors in landing an in-person interview or a new client meeting. Only ticket holders win the lottery, and a portfolio is your golden ticket to play. “Less than 5 percent of designers I know are hired without some kind of portfolio,” said one recruiter I recently interviewed. Your portfolio doesn’t have to be brilliantly amazing, but it must showcase your best work and passion for UX. It should be simple so that your content can shine.
This article provides a handful of guidelines for successfully managing your UX portfolio. Not all the ingredients may be suitable for you, but most of them are a must-have in order to get noticed by companies. The roles of those who contributed their insights and experiences for this article range from UX recruiters to directors of UX at major tech companies.
Why You Need a Portfolio
Credibility
A resume is just one part of your portfolio. Merely talking about your work is great for phone screens from recruiters, but will only get you so far. Possessing a portfolio demonstrates credibility as a user experience designer or researcher. People can learn about your career at their own time and place. Then, if they like what they see, they may invite you to meet face-to-face to get into more detail about your work.
Commitment
A portfolio demonstrates that you are committed to your craft and have invested time and energy into showcasing your best work. Make sure you create an online portfolio. Candidates can make a big mistake by only having a PDF version of their portfolio.
Competitive Edge
Job seeking is a competitive game. For UX candidates, it’s one part skill, one part talent, and one part luck. Ask yourself: What attributes or experiences can I highlight that will make me stand out from the crowd?
Imagine a hiring manager or recruiter reviewing a stack of 100 resumes. Throwing away the resumes without a link to an online portfolio is a quick and easy way to thin the herd. Next, a hiring manager might peruse candidates’ online portfolios to see which ones speak to the needs of the job being filled.
And remember, it’s not just about having a portfolio. Having a mediocre portfolio won’t get you in the door; having a good portfolio will.
Structuring Your Portfolio
Keep It Simple
Having an online portfolio is a prime opportunity to promote your creative thinking abilities, a must-have skill for UX professionals. That said, hiring managers don’t care how creative your portfolio design is as much as they care how creative your UX work is. Furthermore, they say when a portfolio is too creative, it distracts from the work they are evaluating. Let your content—not the container—be the shining star.
Keeping your portfolio’s navigation simple makes it easier for recruiters and hiring managers to quickly see your best work and get you placed sooner. My online portfolio consist of three columns with client names in the first column. Once selected, a description of my accomplishments is displayed in the third column. You can choose screens you would like to view by clicking the numbers in the second column. The experience is very certain.
Showcase Your Process
For UX portfolios, before and after shots are great, but it’s more important to show images for the new and improved version of a design. Employers want to see where you have taken a design and are less concerned with where it was before your involvement.
Integrate Consistent Messaging
Think of your portfolio as your brand; consistency is key. Use the same messaging for all of your portfolio properties. These include your resume, online portfolio, printed portfolio, blog, YouTube channel, Twitter account description, and LinkedIn details.
Be Social
In this world of social networks in which we live, having an online portfolio is but one tool to help you land a job or client. “Be active on social” advises one UX director. Having a LinkedIn profile and an active UX-centric Twitter account attached to your portfolio tells employers that you are involved in the UX community, which is important, given that our industry is constantly evolving.
Use Images
User experience professionals are visual thinkers. We whiteboard, sketch things out, wireframe, and ultimately create and validate designs one way or another. Using images in your portfolio is a must. I like to give as much real estate to images as possible. A lightbox gallery might be one way to show your work in a large format while still having some descriptive text to accompany the smaller versions.
Describe Your Accomplishments
Write a brief description of your accomplishments and contributions for the client or project. Be sure to emphasize the improvements you influenced. For example, let’s say your research showed that users were abandoning the checkout process due to some distracting elements, and your recommendation of removing those elements resulted in improved sales. As a UX researcher, you should write “Discovered cause of checkout abandonment, increasing sales by $200k/month.” If you are a UX designer, go with “Improved usability of shopping cart experience, increasing sales by $200k/month.”
Creating Your Portfolio
To URL or Not to URL?
When you own your web domain, you are telling your prospective employers that you are credible, committed, and can creatively name your portfolio. Which site sounds more credible? www.portfolios.com/iloveuxdesign or www.iloveuxdesign.com? Personally, I gravitate towards the latter. The same can be said for email. Which sounds more like a professional UX person—nick@yahoo.com or nick@iloveuxdesign.com?
Claim Your Properties
Before purchasing your URL, do a search on Twitter usernames for your URL name. In my case, the username I searched was “ILoveUXDesign.” Once you have secured your Twitter handle, create a page in Facebook Pages with the same name. You may want to extend your reach and search YouTube and other venues of broadcast. If you can claim it on all or most fronts, then proceed with purchasing the URL.
Build Your Portfolio
If you know HTML, go ahead and create your portfolio site. For the rest of us, there are plenty of templates and website builders out there. You can connect your domain to a WordPress account, making web publishing a breeze. If owning your domain is not in the cards, Pathbrite, Behance, Dribbble (yes, there are three ‘b’s), and About.me can be great resources as well. Your site does not need to be elaborate, but it does need to demonstrate your best work.
The Art of Presenting Your Work
Be Ready to Talk about Your Portfolio in any Situation
Introduce your work as if viewers have never seen your online portfolio. Also, whether you are on the phone or in person, explain your work using concise, results-focused nuggets of information. You never know when you might meet your next employer or client at a networking event. Having bite-sized accomplishments on your portfolio means you are more likely to reiterate them in a convincing manner when the opportunity arises.
You Got Some ‘Splainin’ to Do
Remember that having great work to show is just one part of the interview process. Beyond that, employers are more interested in learning how you communicate your ideas, how you collaborate in a team setting, and what your process is. I am always intrigued by the process designers use to come up with their solutions. Being able to articulate this process to potential employers and clients will demonstrate that you are thoughtful and process-oriented in your creativity.
The Backup Plan for Your Backup Plan
Remember Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong during an interview. Thinking that you will simply drop your samples into DropBox and show them on your iPad in a meeting is a gamble. Internet connectivity can be unreliable, and troubleshooting network connection issues during an interview will make you look unprepared. If you plan to use a tablet when showcasing your work, use images or PDFs that are already downloaded to your device as a backup to your online portfolio and other web-dependent methods.
The Delicate Dance of NDAs
Non-disclosure agreements are a way companies keep a competitive edge in the marketplace. An NDA basically asks that you won’t go chatting up top-secret work at networking events and posting screenshots of projects before they are introduced to the public at large. Most companies that hire you will have you sign one, sometimes before you even speak with a company representative by phone.
For items that fall under an NDA, it’s typically okay to show samples during in-person interviews. They should not be shared, though.
Parting Words
So there you have it—the tips and tricks you need to ensure that your portfolio is complete and ready for prime time. You know why you absolutely need to have an online portfolio, how to structure and build it, what to show, and also how to present your work. Good luck!
在线作品样本是您赢取用户体验工作面试机会的敲门砖。它不需要多么出色惊人，但是必须能展示您的工作能力。无论是应届毕业生还是用户体验设计或研究经验丰富的职场人员，要想让招聘人员和招聘经理对您刮目相看，就务必准备有利的作品样本并能很好地展示自己的工作能力，这样才可能胜出。
文章全文为英文版온라인 포트폴리오는 UX 취업 면접 기회를 갖기 위한 티켓입니다. 눈부실 정도로 대단할 필요는 없지만, 당신이 하였던 업무가 어떤 것인지 꼭 소개하고 강조해야 합니다. 리크루터와 고용 매니저들의 눈에 돋보이려면, 최근 졸업생이든, 경험이 많은 사용자 경험 디자이너 이거나 리서처이든, 좋은 포트폴리오와 그것을 잘 발표하는 능력이 중요합니다.
전체 기사는 영어로만 제공됩니다.Um portfólio on-line é sua passagem para obter uma entrevista de emprego em experiência do usuário. Ele não precisa ser incrivelmente brilhante, mas deve expor seu trabalho. Para se destacar diante dos recrutadores e gerentes de contratação, um bom portfólio e a capacidade de apresentá-lo bem é importante, seja para recém-formados ou veteranos experientes das áreas de design ou pesquisa em experiência do usuário.
O artigo completo está disponível somente em inglês.オンラインポートフォリオはUX分野の就職面接を成功させるための近道と言ってよいだろう。ポートフォリオは特に目覚しいものでなくても良いが、あなたの経歴を披露するものでなければならない。リクルーターや採用決定者の目に留まるには、新卒者であってもUXデザインやリサーチ分野の経験豊富なベテランであっても、良いポートフォリオを用意することとそれを効果的に提示する能力が重要となる。
原文は英語だけになりますUn portafolio en línea es su billete de entrada a una entrevista para un puesto de trabajo en el área de experiencia de usuario. No es necesario que sea increíblemente asombroso, pero debe ser representativo de su labor. Para destacarse frente a los reclutadores y gerentes a cargo de la contratación, un buen portafolio y la capacidad para saber presentarlo adecuadamente son importantes tanto para los recién graduados como para los veteranos avezados en el diseño o la investigación sobre experiencia de usuario.
La versión completa de este artículo está sólo disponible en inglés.
