UX Design Student Portfolio Improvement Tips

After spending an inspiring day at the UC Davis Design Career Day with William Mead’s UX and interaction design undergraduates, I thought I’d share my top recurring tips for students submitting their portfolios for review.

1. Learn about the hiring organization’s process. Some organizations automate application filtering, so if you don’t hear back, it just means that the automated filtering didn’t connect keywords from your resume with the keywords in the job ad. Solution 1: Tailor your application to the position requirements. Solution 2: Connect with the organization’s recruitment team and contact them directly.
2. Keep in mind that recruiters and hiring managers look at dozens of portfolios. Make the portfolio website as usable as possible with clear links and a simple layout. We appreciate it when we can quickly access your primary content: your case studies.
3. Hand-coding your portfolio is a plus, but not at the expense of usability, simplicity, or time you could have spent improving the case studies. It is okay to use a premade template or a portfolio service, as long as you don’t leave the impression that it is your original work. Unless it’s required for the posted position, coding skills are, frankly speaking, entirely optional. In other words, spend more time on the case studies.
4. Overdesigned portfolio websites draw attention away from the case studies. Impress us with smart typography choices, invisible layout decisions, and content organization. Always opt to nerd-out on correct and consistent punctuation. Trust me, we see those tiny little details. Impress with the case studies, not the portfolio website.
5. Be more intentional with the case study selection. Make at least 80% of your case studies focused on the types of positions you are applying for. For example, for UX positions, 4 out of 5 should be about UX projects, and one can showcase your graphic design skills or some other design specialization. Don’t hide your other talents, though. The right place for them is under the About page.
6. Make it super clear what the case study is all about using easy to understand language. Instead of starting the case study with Reimagining the Future of Humanity (which is an excellent aspirational line to add later in the case study), start with something like Mobile Application that Does X, or a Website for Brand Y that helps them achieve Z.
7. Make the primary photo, illustration, or video of a solution stand out at the top of the page. Avoid the 3D effects of floating mobile devices because they are more appropriate for showcasing device design at apple.com. Your already great mobile interfaces should stay in focus. Make them look good.
8. Add a link to the interactive prototype or live website at the top of the case study (not at the bottom). Remember: if a picture is worth a thousand words, an interactive prototype is worth a thousand pictures.
9. The second most important case study information (after the design outcome itself) is the learning trajectory. We don’t expect you to have professional-grade case studies, but we do want to understand how you learn and grow. What was surprising to you about the project? How did you change direction? What challenged you to adapt and learn new skills? This helps us understand your growth potential.

Anything else to add?