UX/UI Portfolios

Over the last few years we have seen the proliferation of the UX/UI portfolio. These are typically online, hosted as a personal website or on a UI beauty parade website such as Dribble or Behance. Often the content is unsolicited redesigns of existing user interfaces. Owners of these portfolios frequently claim they are creating user experiences as they are creating user interfaces that participate in a user experience.

Whether this is true or not, few creators of these portfolios carry out research into user or even business needs. Often their goal is to impress peers with something pretty rather than identify and solve a real problem. Even if they did, it’s impossible to tell if the portfolio contains only images, as they often do.

Only users can judge the user experience. Even UX portfolios don’t show the user experience. They explain the conscientious work that went into ensuring the right design was produced. If you have a UX/UI portfolio containing only pretty visual designs, then you may have a very fine UI design portfolio but a really ineffective UX one.

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