Why having fewer Portfolio Projects is better
Portfolio Principles: Week 02. First appeared in my mail list.
This episode is part of a series called Portfolio Principles. In this series, I help people to build a more effective portfolio. Get weekly portfolio building tips.
All opinions my own.
Did you know that the number of portfolio projects greatly impacts the user experience?
There is a misconception that having many projects is more effective. In fact, I want to argue the opposite. The fewer, the better.
However, I don’t want you to start deleting your projects right after reading this post. I want you to reconsider the number you have.
Why having fewer portfolio projects is better.
1. You want to set high expectations
In an industry where visitors are extremely short of time, first impressions and related expectations are huge. A portfolio with many projects is like a menu with too many dishes. You are not expecting a great Margarita pizza if the restaurant also serves thirty other pizzas. However, if the Margarita pizza is one of the five options, you have higher expectations.
“You are not expecting a great Margarita pizza if
the restaurant also serves thirty other pizzas.”
Even though you might not be aware that your brain is doing this, it makes total sense. With fewer options, the chef is probably more experienced in preparing the specific dish. Besides that, the limited ingredients will probably be fresher.
To conclude this paragraph. If you have fewer options, you expect a higher quality. This also applies to the number of projects in your portfolio.
2. You want to go in depth
The most important reason to have fewer projects, is that it enables you to go in depth. The fewer projects you have, the more you can show off each of these projects.
Your level of depth reveals your skills, your passion, and your potential.
You can go in depth by highlighting a detail of your product. If you highlight a detail, it is not just about that detail. That particular detail shows that you care about details in general. Passionate people care about details.
If you choose not to go in depth, your work will appear to be more generic. Just to give you an example. Any app designer can show a weather app. However, not every app designer decides to start his design by sketching. Even fewer app designers think about using the phone’s built-in GPS. So by going in depth, your projects become more unique. This uniqueness is what makes your projects stand out.
3. You want to control what the visitor sees
No one will go through all of your ten projects. Face it.
Visitors might visit five projects if you are lucky. Which five? You don’t know. You don’t know what your visitor saw, read and will remember of you. You don’t know what the visitor experienced.
“You don’t know what your visitor saw, read and will remember of you.”
Some visitors who saw three app projects might think you are an app developer. Other visitors who saw graphic work might think you are an illustrator. Some visitors saw your best projects while others saw your weakest.
By having too many projects, what the visitor experiences is not just beyond your control, it is even beyond your understanding. If you were to show three projects instead, you can expect the visitors to see all of them.
Now you can decide to show three app projects or three illustration pieces. The most important thing is that you can now actually decide. Instead of relying on the visitors to connect the dots, you have already connected the dots yourself.
“Instead of relying on the visitors to connect the dots,
you have already connected the dots yourself.”
The more projects you show, the more difficult it becomes to offer a consistent experience.
4. You want to show confidence in your work
Showing ten projects is like saying: “Hopefully there is something you like.” Showing three projects is more something like: “This is what I stand for. If you don’t like it, bad for you.”
Showing only three projects is more like saying:
“This is what I stand for. If you don’t like it, bad for you.”
The number of projects reveals a certain level of confidence in your work. People who are not confident about the quality of their work tend to try to compensate this with quantity. Don’t make this mistake because visitors will notice this.
5. You want people to wish for more
Last week argued that The Real Reason you should have an Online Portfolio is to build and strengthen a network of followers.
One effective strategy to converting visitors to followers is to make them wish for more.
People who have had enough are not motivated to return.
People wishing are more likely to take further actions. They might revisit your portfolio some day or they might directly reach out to you.
Concluding Words
Maybe you were expecting me to give you a perfect number of portfolio projects. I didn’t really talk about numbers, simply because there is no perfect number. Still, it is safe for me to say that you are probably showing too many projects.
The effective number of projects is closely related to the level of depth of each of these projects. You can only get away with few projects if the contents of these projects go into great depth.
This episode is part of a series called Portfolio Principles. In this series, I help people to build a more effective portfolio. Get weekly portfolio building tips.
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