How to build a professional UX Research portfolio
A hands-on guide for how to create a UX research portfolio that will stand out
When it comes to displaying our work, UX researchers are in a difficult position. Most of the studies we conduct, the artifacts we create, and the insights we deliver are confidential. On top of that, it looks nothing like a visual designer’s portfolio. Unlike designers, UX researchers do not have well-polished design artifacts to display.
I collected some practical tips for you about how to overcome these challenges and create an outstanding UX Research Portfolio.
Tell a story
The most important advice I can give is to tell a story. The best way to display what you’ve done is to write case studies for your work. A good case study allows you to focus on what really matters from your research without going into unnecessary details. It can help you highlight the impact of your work.
Telling a story instead of focusing on research artifacts can also help solve confidentiality problems. You can choose the appropriate amount of details to include on that particular study and you can build an engaging story without showing a single artifact that might contain sensitive information about the project.
When you are writing your case study, the narrative arc is essential. These are five basic steps to make your story more engaging and easy to follow.
- The intro: Let’s start by providing some context for your study. Start with a short introduction to your employer/client then think about the basic information they might need for context. What kind of industry are they in? What is their core offering? What product you were working on?
- The challenge: Every project starts with a challenge. Use this section to explain the problem you were trying to solve to your audience. What questions were you trying to answer with your study? What frameworks were you trying to improve?
- The solution: It’s time to get into some details of your study by describing your experience setting up and conducting your research plan. Which methodologies did you chose? Why? Who were your participants? How many were there? How did the study go? Did you face any difficulties? Did you have to adjust your plan?
- The findings: This is the most tricky part of your story. You should find the balance between sharing detailed, sensitive information and not sharing anything at all. A good approach is to focus on the high-level findings. Highlight the most impactful insights.
- The impact: Your story doesn’t stop with your findings. The key is to highlight the business impact of your work. How did your insights impact the product strategy? How did they affect the roadmap or the design decisions? Have they sparked new conversations? These will be the questions everyone will want to know. In the end, stakeholders are most interested in how your work can drive changes to the product.
Of course, these five steps are very generic. It is possible that your case study doesn’t map closely to this model. That’s perfectly fine! For example, if you are working on research operations projects you might not have an extensive ‘findings’ sections, but may be able to put more focus on the frameworks you improved. As long as you highlight the challenges, the solution, and the impact of your work, you can be flexible with the sections.
How to choose stories to share?
You don’t have to include every project you’ve worked on throughout your career. Quality is more important than quantity. Choose 3–6 studies that you are proud of and select projects which display a wide range of skills.
Don’t wait for the perfect study! Do you feel that none of the studies you have conducted are perfect? That’s OK. We all have to deal with changes in priorities, limited resources, or other constraining factors. Good case studies don’t come from ideal research projects. They display your ability to overcome those obstacles and deliver the best possible result given the circumstances.
The tools
The easiest way to showcase your studies is to create an online portfolio. Nowadays there are many tools available for researchers (Behance, Wix, etc).
You don’t have any design background? No problem! There are many tools that offer templates you can leverage. You don’t have to be a designer to create a beautiful portfolio site. Online portfolios are easier to share than large PDFs and take less effort to keep up to date.
The format
The format of your study is just as important as the content when you’re writing your story. There are some basic visual tricks that can make your case studies easier to read.
- Keep it compact: Keep your study as short as possible without compromising the story arc. Shorter paragraphs work better- no one likes reading a long chunk of text online. Respect your audience’s time. You can always go into more detail while you are presenting your studies later on.
- Highlight keywords: By highlighting keywords you make it easier for your audience to scan your story and remember the most important takeaways.
- Highlight numbers: Numbers are great way to communicate the impact of your work. It’s important to highlight key figures to display the scale and impact of your work. For example the number of study participants etc.
- Use illustrations: If you can share your research artifacts, such as personas, journeys, etc, do so. However, most of the time those artifacts are confidential. If that’s the case, you can still use illustrations in your portfolio. It will break the monotony of having just text, increase your study’s readability, and make your work look visually appealing.
It will take time and it’s OK
Building a portfolio is a lot of work. You are summarizing the highlights of your career. Make sure you take your time. Don’t try to make it in one go. Choose the stories you want to share. Write the case studies. Make it look nice. Review it. Review it again. Ask your friends and colleagues to review it. Check it on different devices. Check it again.
With multiple rounds of iteration, your portfolio may take a few weeks to complete, and that’s fine. If you build up a good base it will be easy to maintain your portfolio in the future.
Keep it up to date
As you progress in your career, you might want to update your portfolio from time to time. The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch every time. Adding a new case study or refreshing your visuals will be less time-consuming than the initial work.
Building a great UX Research Portfolio is a lot of work but you will benefit from it greatly. I hope this short article will get you started — so go ahead and write your first case study today!
Nora Pekker is a Design Researcher at IBM based in Budapest. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
