With the sheer number and plethora of different styles and types of portfolios available to view online, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.
When you’re overwhelmed, remember to take a step back and breathe. Our course tutors reminded us to bring it back to who will be viewing the portfolio (the user) and the business goals (what do I want to achieve from this). How can we design a portfolio for all the potential recruiters who may look at it?
The answer, we found out, lies in the same method that we use for our UX projects. Through research, data analysis and synthesis. I investigated 25 job listings that I was interested in (keeping in mind that the business goal in this project was for a jobs and companies that interest me!) and compiled the frequency of the key words from each job listing into a spreadsheet.
The Data
The data was compiled off of job listings from SEEK, Linked In and Jora as the most frequently used job listing websites in Australia. As you do in affinity mapping and synthesis of data, any group that is too small. In this case, ‘storyboards’, ‘ideation’ and ‘double diamond’ which all had 1 listing out of 25 (1/25) did not make the cut. The largest groups were ‘prototypes’ (16/25), ‘wireframes’ (15/25) and ‘human centered designs’ (13/25).
Software-wise, Sketch (10/25) and Figma (9/25) won out, but InVision was a close second (7/25).
Insights and Next Steps
What I gathered from viewing the job listings was that it was quite easy to tell who had written the job listing based on the skills it was requesting. That said, in order to make it onto the chopping block in the first place, all parties involved (n.b. users who are viewing the portfolio) in the hiring process need to be considered.
And whilst considering my users, I cannot simply showcase what I know that the market wants in my portfolio and ignore the business goals of the project. What do I believe I excel at and what do I believe is important to include as part of my branding? The answer to that is my data driven approach (6/25), human/user centered design (13/25), understanding of UX methodologies (8/25). These are what I want to ensure are well communicated in my portfolio. My portfolio will likely never be ‘complete’ as it will be a constant accumulation of my experiences and work.
Using the UX research process has helped me to keep in mind the things I want to focus on and which I can leave out of the initial stages. When I put together my case studies for this portfolio, I want to focus on these aspects. And the resulting portfolio that I present will be because of a combination of the data resulting from my research, and my focus on the user requirements and my own business goals.
