Yang presents the challenge, team, project duration, her role, and the skills she used to get it done in a clear and easy-to-read format. The course teaches you how to create a solid UX portfolio in record time. What is a UX case study? Youve actually thought about what youve learned that you can utilize in future projects as well. Writing case studies for your UX portfolio can feel opaque and overwhelming. All UX case studies should include relevant visuals as too much text can be intimidating for readers. In this article, well walk through seven types of portfolio case studies you can add to your portfolio that dont require you already having a job. Some work may need to be password-protected due to NDAs, but you want to give recruiters something to look at without having to email you for a password first. Present your design process step-by-step, from the beginning to the end. So next time you are out and about testing with users, document as much as you can. Her case study titles and subtitles are effective too. The Storytelling Approach in UX Case Studies An essential part of the portfolio of a UX designer is the case studies that pack a showcase of the designer's skills, way of thinking, insights in the form of compelling stories. By the end, you'll have completed nine projects in a lab environment or web application and earned a Professional Certificate from Meta. Remember, your UX portfolio is for busy clients and hiring managers (the users). Consider including screenshots of your design with call-outs of key changes inspired by your usability testing like this: Now its time to show your final designs. UX Case Study Generators Generating UX/UI Ideas and Case Studies Watch on 1. Trailer 2:32 2. Reflecting on a project shows that you didnt just move on to the next one after delivering the design. Heres the proof that you dont have to overthink your UI/UX portfolio to achieve something great. Be clear about the scope and limitations of your project. What is even better that he still shows some final UIs or design elements on the thumbnails so you can get a sense of his overall work even though you cant peek further. UX Design . Youll find plenty of benefits to working as an interneven if youre unpaidincluding: Portfolio example: Ricardo Hernndez Prez, Adobe, Ricardo Hernndez Prez, a product designer with Google, got his start with an internship at Adobe. What is a UI & UX Design case study? 11.1K Followers. Letting your personality shine via funny or unexpected copy is always a great way to go. This is a good way to encourage visitors to get in touch. Natalies case studies include illustrations that are similar in style. The case study ends with the learnings. Explore Bachelors & Masters degrees, Advance your career with graduate-level learning, 7 UX Designer Portfolio Examples: A Beginners Guide, Build in demand career skills with experts from leading companies and universities, Choose from over 8000 courses, hands-on projects, and certificate programs, Learn on your terms with flexible schedules and on-demand courses. In Danielles portfolio, the spotlight is on the UIs. Writing case studies for your UX portfolio can feel opaque and overwhelming. These research-based design decisions are at the heart of user-centered design. So, UX case studies play a significant role in UX designer's life. These aim to demonstrate how you approach the UX process, and who you are as a designer. In the Pebble Health case study Alexander showcased a whole Visual Design Evolution, explaining how he applied an existing visual language to a new platform. Mina uses password protection for her case studies to ensure complete control over who can access them. UX portfolio and case study templates in a click In UXfolio everything's just a click away: UX portfolio templates, UX case study generator, stunning galleries for your UIs, auto-generated device mockups, copywriting help, community and expert feedback and much-much more! Sidney drops a relatable, personal paragraph about distraction then moves on to takeaways that shell be able to use in other projects too. It creates a sense of cohesion even when some of your visuals include colorful pictures. A typical mistake I see in UX portfolios is lack of content explaining their contribution to the effort, the images are only the final product and not the process to get there. When reviewing candidates, design leads always check their portfolios first. Though the projects come from different fields, Gabriels portfolio still looks consistent, because he used the same template for his thumbnails. Whats more, Sarah included lots of visuals such as information architecture maps, sketches, low-fidelity prototypes, brand application guidelines, and even slides from her final presentation. Its better to have 3-4 great case studies than 5-6 mediocre. Each case study starts with a title and a concise description of the UX project. Adding pages like About/Bio, Contact, UX designer resum, and social links can make your portfolio more usable, revealing, and personal. Typically, most people choose to build their portfolio online, in the form of a website, as an additional layer of demonstration that they understand how to create effective digital interfaces and flows. Copyright 2019-2023 Adobe. The first step to creating UX case studies is to choose the right projects to feature in your portfolio. Recruiters and readers dont have hours to review your portfolio, so feature only 3-5 of your absolute best projects. When it comes to storytelling and case studies, it is crucial to explicitly connect the research and the final outcome. But they're not the same thing. Portfolio example: Clayton Hopkins - #DullesJustice, Clayton Hopkins includes a few pro bono case studies in his portfolio in the form of Medium articles. This upbeat portfolio page by junior product designer, Shubham, mixes great text-styling techniques, pops of vibrant colors, and the space-filling effect of large project thumbnails. Designing a few UX case studies for your portfolio is a powerful way to help you stand out among the crowd. The case studies that call for it are more text-heavy, while the rest are more visual-leaning to showcase Maxs design skills and eye for subdued beauty. This way you can ensure that there is enough material to create an amazing case study. If you are creating case studies solely for the purpose of populating your portfolio, I guarantee those won't be competitive enough. Give examples of great case studies + how to write one. Note : I skimmed through Shawn's Grubhub UX project case study. It's the single most vital component of any design career move you will ever make. This is your opportunity to articulate which user research methodologies fit into your design process. To get started, let's take a look at some general guidelines and best practices for your UX design portfolio. We dont understand the copy in Hyks Moje Osiedle case study, but we can see that he included plenty of visuals alongside the text to help his readers comprehension. What isnt in the design, and why? And that reason is their audience. Its structure is fantastic. These can pull together even your weirdest projects into a coherent whole. Keep the same tone as in the rest of your design portfolio's copy, in order to form a clear personal brand and consistent browsing experience. Portfolio example: Tammy Taabassum - Wish Design Challenge. But if youd like to get started building a portfolio for free, these platforms can help you showcase your work: 1. Documentary is, after all, a quintessential form of user research. Mina includes only three case studies in her UX design portfolio, which is within the ideal range. Just one glance at his portfolio and you know that Doron is not only an exceptional UX/UI designer but also a gifted illustrator. It showcases the entire process in a step-by-step fashion. Thats because theres a portfolio formula that works. This is your opportunity to show hiring managers how you think under pressure. In her Bubs case study, we get a walkthrough of all the projects stages. Get inspiration for your entry-level UX portfolio with real world examples. What is the work of a UX designer? He begins on a personal note in his description, pointing out that the Boulderr App was a passion project that he worked on with his friends. Its also an option to present more information about the projects right on your own portfolio home page. And if they are, they can find them in the footer navigation. On a mission to create more UX professionals. Build a beautiful portfolio quickly and easily. You might include the final mockup or the company logo in this section. When presenting the outcome of your project, make sure to reflect back on the research findings you mentioned earlier. Those numbers leave no room for doubt about the quality of WebFX's services. She is brave in her choice of color and it results in a stunning portfolio. Realistically, a product will continue to grow in an iterative process; explaining the direction the product is heading or talking about features that are coming up in future iterations is a great way to showcase this. With a pretty impressive portfolio, Arshad Wala uses a case study on the UX of the Xbox to demonstrate his problem-solving and design skills. Such thumbnails alongside a concise and intriguing introduction make for a winning combination. Joshs portfolio is a great example of a project-focused portfolio. The result speaks for itself. If you can tell an effective story while integrating human-computer interaction principles throughout, youll come across as a great UX designer that any company would like to hire. CarbonMade : Andrea Azcurra: Andrea is a seasoned UX writer and content strategist with a love of design thinking and user experience. Ready to land your dream job? UX case studies are a form of professional content that mixes text and visuals to present the design process of products or product features. Side projects or other work: If you have case studies or graphic design work beyond your few highlighted projects, give them a separate section where those who would like to see more can find them. If you dont want to add too many case studies to your portfolio (or you just dont have enough projects yet) using larger thumbnails is a great way to fill the space in your portfolio. These seven types of UX case studies make excellent portfolio material for UX designers looking to get their start in the industry. Build a concise, clean, portfolio. But that doesnt mean you cant keep working on your portfolio. Join Khrys to learn more! The course assignment Sometimes, the first project to go into your portfolio will be a UX project you worked on as part of a design course, UX bootcamp, or degree program. The 6 must-have components of a good UX researcher portfolio, according to a user experience career coach. I'm a former teacher transitioning into a career in UX. The Notch case study could be used as a template by any designer whos not scared of copywriting. It comes with templates and a repeatable structure that you can use to knock out UX case studies and portfolios. Objective: The objective of this project was to design a responsive newsletter website for my college society that would provide an informative platform for students . -Join a Code for America brigade to help design new tools for local communities. Sagars case study ends with a section about How is the app performing? and another one for reflections. Roy has also created some additional visuals for his case study, to tie each of his sections together. Instead of simply showboating on her stunning UIs, Danielle provides background and details, proving that she is designing with purpose. Feel free to link externally to any documents that may be too lengthy for your portfolio site. Justin Morales is a Senior UX designer currently working at Signify Health, a B2B Healthtech company, based in Los Angeles. Getting started with Pixpa is relatively simple. The introduction contains all necessary elements: She provides an overview, introduces the team, the problem, and her role. New Best Practices for Leading Hybrid Creative Teams, The Time Is Now to Empower Emerging Designers with a New Approach to Design Education, Translating User Research into User Experience Design, How Julia Feld Uses UX to Help Immigrants & Refugees, Do not sell or share my personal information. If youre ready to take the next step toward a career in user experience design, consider enrolling in the Google UX Design Professional Certificate on Coursera. Probably you are already mindful of your copywriting. Here is an example of next steps for a minimum viable product (MVP) for a wine-pairing app. Where are you from? These are only really small details, but when we read these subtitles we cant help but smile. The web design case study about the Chamos Language Academy illustrates that the case study format is ideal for almost any design-related project. She includes affinity maps, a user persona, task flow chart, and low-fidelity, high-fidelity, animated, and clickable prototypes. Victorias take reassures us that app concepts are perfect material for UX case studies, as they show even more of your personality and perspective on design. Give it a try! Since she is a product designer, her showcased projects are all digital products. We chose to showcase the Diem case study from Victorias portfolio because its such a great example of an app concept. The client feedback part is especially powerful, as it uses quotes instead of a summary. Four UI/UX case studies for your portfolio Up to 7 design screens. Stockwell agrees as they put it, "WebFX's services have impacted our core business by assisting with the brand awareness . They add a touch of personality to your case studies and also some credibility. Nicolas UX design portfolio is a love letter to minimalism. What makes for a great UX portfolio? Quentins was built on the less is more principle. Setting the thumbnail titles to appear on hover only adds to the weightless feel of the home page. Both analytical data and learnings would be impactful closures for a case study, but combining the two is even better! Show how you incorporated it into your design. You can use the steps in your process to create a navigation section, such as the one offered in UXfolio, to tie all parts of your case study together. Whats important is that you showcase your range through your best work. Linhs Data Privacy Browser Extension case study is well-structured and engaging. Youve landed your first interview for a UX designer role. You dont have to reinvent the wheel in order to create something unique. Follow his example! Whats more, Jaclyn wrote an engaging and memorable About page, which is a hard thing to do. By re-using this template, he creates a sense of familiarity and security as we click from one case study to the next. Thats where you can utilize Shubhams technique: create a thumbnail template that can be used for any project with only a few tweaks. Make clear that this was a design challenge so recruiters are aware of the limitations, such as time constraints. Though their backgrounds are color-blocking, the thumbnails are tied together by the style and positioning of the screens on them. Recruiters and UX professionals have to look through dozens of case studies each day. My Role UX/UI case study is a visual document that contains detailed information about a specific project. Choose projects that are fun or interesting to you and that youd be proud to display in your portfolio. After walking us through his process, we get to see a beautiful gallery of final UIs and a statistics section. Its hard to choose a favorite from her 4 fantastic case studies. User research is useless if it doesnt influence your design decisions. My First UX Case Study for Google UX Certification | by Yesha Shah | Muzli - Design Inspiration Write Sign up Sign In 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Whichever methodologies you used to guide your design, these are the ones to highlight in your case study. In particular, their traffic and clicks skyrocketed they experienced an 885% increase in search traffic and a 473% increase in clicks. What are some key companies or brands you have worked with? What you need is a nice introduction, carefully selected fonts, and a nice, harmonizing color palette to create something beautiful. Case Studies; Customer Stories Resources Open Source GitHub Sponsors. She also discusses how she would test and iterate with more resources, giving her interviewers a preview of the value shed bring to the company. This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository. -Lend your graphic design skills to a worthy cause with donate:code. Here is where you can show how you are able to take your research and apply it to your design. Avoid signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for unpaid work. Her portfolio contains both case studies and lots of samples of her work. Portio Hugo is a simple, minimal and responsive Portfolio Hugo Theme. She uses arrows to point to a specific element. You can also create a GIF to showcase certain user flows like this: Or, feel free to take a simple approach with mockups like this: After you blow the reader away with your impressive final design, you can address the next steps in your design process. Check out his UX writing case studies, especially the one for the digital technology addiction app Reboot & Recover. He includes plenty of colorful visuals to showcase his process and reinforce his text, and he even includes a digital project report booklet where you can get an in-depth look at his research. And dont forget, sometimes the journey is more important than the goal itself! a short but revealing sentence for subtitle. Two UI/UX case studies for your portfolio Up to 5 design screens. Telling the story of your design does not necessarily mean that a case study should be a list of methods and steps ending with a final design. These portfolios have sleek, pared-down interfaces that link out to the designer's body of work. Also, try to make it easy for the reader to establish a connection between those two parts. Jeremy also highlights his visual design strengths with a full brand guide that highlights the meaning behind his design choices. After the event, Yang even added an illustration showing how the app would bridge the gap between user experience and business value based on feedback from hackathon judges.. Luckily, its possible to craft a stellar portfolio that shows off your skills before youve ever had a paying client. Her teams challenge was to design an app to help college students better connect with their classmates. You want to select projects that demonstrate your UX process, your problem-solving skills . Jeremy begins his case study by introducing the service, then takes you behind the scenes to see his design process. Including a course assignment or capstone project in your portfolio can demonstrate your ability to: Work with the constraints and challenges of a brief, Incorporate feedback into design iterations, Portfolio example: Phyllis Liu - Autonomous Ridesharing, Phyllis Liu, a Seattle-based UX designer who has worked for Facebook and Shopify, designed an autonomous car ridesharing experience as part of a project for a course at the University of Washington. One glance at Valeries portfolio and it is evident that there has been significant time spent on its design. This way your visitors can still check the public parts of your work. In this blog post, I am explaining the purpose, structure, and best practices of a UI UX Design case study and portfolio. Show your design process in action through photos, sketches, and screenshots. Her project got her an internship, as well as a stellar portfolio piece. Polish your hackathon project before presenting it as a case study (and acknowledge that you did so). And we could go on and on, as UXfolio offers an array of features that were chosen with UX designers and researchers in mind. Present the right work, summarize your findings, and communicate clearly to showcase your skills. In summary, your UX design portfolio should contain 3-4 UX case studies and some information about yourself. If you also find yourself writing about versions or solutions, feel free to show some sketches and scribbles. After working with many designers throughout my own career and helping many more build their job-ready portfolios, there are a few designers that I keep coming back to for inspiration and some that are inspiring a new generation of UI/UX and Product Designers to enter the field.. I've chosen 10 of our favorite UI/UX and Product Designersa colorful tapestry of digital product architects that . If well designed, small illustrations, nice flowcharts, redesigned deliverables can elevate a case study immensely. This can be a good tactic if you have NDA-protected work that you want to showcase without exposing it to the whole world. For example, sometimes a contextual inquiry is appropriate while other times it is not. Problem: Important notices were getting lost among the flood of other messages, with half of the information becoming irrelevant by the time it reached students.As a result, students had to rely on word of mouth to stay informed. If youre more interested in user research or user interface (UI) design, prioritize these elements in your case studies. Theres a reason why UX designer portfolios are structured the way they are. Be sure to take photos of your work when completing a whiteboard challenge during an interview.. Max pushes visual consistency even further by introducing all his case studies on a background that echoes the color of the projects thumbnail. High-fidelity prototypes from an unsolicited redesign of Houzz. In UXfolio, this is a native feature both on the portfolio and the case study level.