Displaying UX Research in your Design Portfolio — 4 mistakes you don’t want to make
When it comes to displaying research in your portfolio: How much is too much? How do you keep hiring managers/recruiters interested?
Being a hiring manager, I’m going to help you find the right balance and avoid the most common mistakes I see in portfolios when it comes to displaying your UX research.
Why? What’s the goal?
There are hundreds of ux research methodologies so why have you chosen this one for this project? What goal was it helping you to achieve? Never assume that the people reviewing your portfolio will know based on what the methodology is typically used for. Your job is to showcase your understanding, not theirs.
I can easily see here that Melvin conducted interviews to “validate initial findings and further understand how people currently form habits, their motivations and challenges”
And Miranda here did this compeitive analysis to familiarise her team with the food sharing process of other apps.
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Information overload 😵💫
Don’t drown viewers in data. The purpose of a design portfolio isn’t to show every little step and detail of your process, no one will read it. Think of your portfolio as a high-level teaser. You want to find the right balance of showing your thinking, process, and findings just enough to have a hiring manager wanting to know more. That’s why it’s super important to be concise, especially for research, as it’s easy to go overboard about your methodology but also your findings.
Here Miranda has nicely summarised the key findings from her empathy mapping exercise:
I really like how Melvin has used his overarching findings as the title of this section on his case study. In one sentence I’m clear on what he’s found in his research and I’m curious to know more so I read on… (that’s the power of great storytelling)
Customise and curate your visual assets
Yes, even for research. I also shared this in my Small portfolio changes that make a big impact article because it’s one of the most common mistakes that inexperienced designers make. Think of your case study as it’s own design project. Don’t just lazily snap screenshots of spreadsheets where you collected your research. You can do better.
Take Melvin here for example. Do I think this was the full view of his competitive analysis? No. He’s taken a sample of that work specifically for his portfolio and what would be most relevant to get his point across for this section.
Another good example from Melvin creating a curated view from his user input. Is this how he actually gathered this input, no. But it gets the point across very clearly.
Last one, because it’s a good balance of showing a real “working file” but Melvin summarises the top 3 questions that came from the workshop so I don’t actually have to read through the sticky notes to know the outcome.
Melvin is killing it you guys 😎
Ok I lied, one more, because this is so important. You are designers after all. Miranda clearly doesn’t expect anyone to actually gather anything from the empathy maps she’s showing here. But this still shows me she’s done the work and I can easily understand the takeaways she had from doing this exercise. Very nice 👌
Disconnection from Design
Don’t just present research in a vacuum. You want to clearly show how the research informed your design decisions and ultimately improved the product overall. This one can be tricky to show because of course you’ve taken all those findings into your wireframe step. One method I like to use is summarising all the initial research through How Might We (HMW) statements and then showing the correlating designs that addresses each.
Melvin here has used user needs/JTBD and showcased the wireframes that will help the user achieve what they want. This ties his previous findings directly with the designs he’s crafting.
Doing this with findings from usability testing is probably the easiest. But keep your findings concise and make it clear what you’ve changed in the designs. Melvin does this beautifully:
So in summary:
- Show you know your sh&t by addressing the goal and why you’ve chosen a particular exercise
- Keep it brief
- Design your assets intentionally
- Connect your research to your design choices
On the portfolio train? If you want to make sure your portfolio have everything a hiring manager or recruiter is looking for use this checklist 👇
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