When I started my blog, I immediately began receiving requests for assistance in creating portfolios. It turned out that finding a job is not as hard as finding a way to present oneself for that job.
Despite my primary focus being UX research, I have a few thoughts that might help designers compile a portfolio. A portfolio is a key to success for a designer. Surprisingly, nowadays, even diplomas and certificates are not required; what’s important is to showcase what you have in your arsenal, how you think, and how you design.
Well then, let’s figure it out! I’ve highlighted a few important rules:
1. Do not send a folder with all your works without any system as a portfolio. Especially if it contains a lot of work.
Imagine a recruiter with a lot of candidates (and the market situation is such that everything is exactly as I describe), usually, no more than 20 minutes are spent on each candidate. If you complicate the review of your portfolio, you generate negativity in the recruiter. After all, if you visit a website and it’s maximally inconvenient, what do you do? Right, you look for another one.
What to do: organize your work by years, by companies you worked for, by themes, or by style. Give the recruiter a chance to see your full potential.
2. Ask yourself why you need a portfolio.
The answer can be very different, indeed, “I need to show all my styles”, “I want to show something incredible, something others can’t do”, etc.
It is from this you should start and build your portfolio. Then you will understand what you can fill it with.
3. Do not cram into your portfolio everything you have done since junior school.
Identify the company you are sending your portfolio to and the goal you are pursuing. If the list of goals does not include “introduce the company to my family and my childhood creations”, then don’t. ;)
Do some research — try to find information about your future job — what skills are necessary? — what kind of specialist are companies looking for? — what skills are they looking for? — what soft skills are important for the company? Write down all the results on a sheet and based on this data, select the best projects for your portfolio.
What to consider when creating a UX portfolio
Now that you have found inspiration in the work of other UX designers and drawn the right conclusions from them, you can create your own online representation. Take into account all the main recommendations for creating a UX portfolio that you learned from this article:
• Immediately make it clear who you are and what you do.
• Be available for contact.
• Indicate your current employment status.
• Reflect your individuality.
• Accompany cases with explanations and images.
• Talk about the process as a whole, not just about the final product.
• Write useful texts with an emotional vein.
• Describe the full set of your skills and abilities.
• Provide basic information about each project.
• Include only the best work in the portfolio and create a showreel.
• Enhance the portfolio with design concepts and showreels.
• Show your growth.
Very often, portfolios simply gather finished projects, like a gallery.
But if you want to land a job, then show not just the result of the work, but your working process, your train of thought.
This will distinguish you from your colleagues.
There’s a simple formula:
1. Show the problem that needs to be solved.
2. Your action plan.
3. The difficulties you faced in the process of work.
4. The result and your conclusions.
If your portfolio shows the above points, it will reveal you as an expert who can be part of a team; who can think critically, not just a specialist who does design.
In that case, the recruiter will definitely linger on your portfolio and most likely will want to invite you to the next stage.
Tools
I’ve prepared a small selection of tools that will be great helpers in creating the coolest portfolio:
1. Taskade Portfolio Builder
With a portfolio generator, you don’t have to be a tech wizard to create an amazing portfolio yourself. It provides user-friendly interfaces and easy navigation that allows even beginners to create effective portfolios.
2. Bento Widget Templates
Bento is one of the recently popular “Linktree” style websites for anyone to create your own personal page. As the name suggests, it uses a grid to form the content blocks that form the bento box UI design. You can be creative with forming the blocks with different sizes and emphasis.
3. Notion
The trend of recent times — easily form all the information. The site will be ready as quickly as possible. This is one of the most effective options for creating a UX portfolio when you don’t have much time and resources.
4. UXfolio
You don’t need to know coding.
You can create a portfolio very quickly, without wasting time.
One of the plus points — you can protect your content and set access to it with a password.
5. Webflow
One of the most popular platforms among designers.
It might be complex for those who haven’t dealt with coding. But nonetheless, it deserves attention.
6. Wix
If you need a simple design with ready-made templates. Or a site that will be ready quickly, then pay attention to the well-known platform Wix.
I wish you success!
And more UX tips about portfolios and more can be found on my Instagram ux.nata or in my Telegram channel @des_research.
