How to Highlight Essential Skills in a UX Design Portfolio

Not getting another interview after your portfolio presentation? Maybe this is why 👇 I've sat in many portfolio presentations. I also work with numerous mentees, helping shape their stories. The biggest mistake I always see is not showcasing the why behind your work. Context. So many presentations go like this: - Hi, it me 👋 - Here's my first case - Here is a persona I made - Here is another persona I made - Here is an arbitrary user flow - Here is a sketch I made - Here is a wireframe I made - Here is the final solution - I learned a couple of things Your presentation should be a story, not a simple show and tell. Don't just tell your audience WHAT you did. Tell them WHY you did it. The why connects your thought process to your design. We want to hear what drove your decisions. Paint a vivid picture of the challenges you faced, the insights you stumbled upon, and the brainstorms that led to breakthroughs. What separates you from other designers is how you think and your design decisions. ✅ Frame your failures ✅ Dissect your decisions ✅ Incorporate your successes ✅ Create a beginning, middle, and end ✅ Show the path from initial idea to final Each slide and each statement should reveal a bit more about your thinking process. Details matter. Subtleties matter. They all add up to a powerful narrative. When your presentation is infused with purpose and passion, your work shines. It demonstrates your technical skills and your capacity for critical thinking, problem-solving, and empathetic understanding. And that's what sets you apart. Not just the sheer quality of your work but also the depth of thought put into it. Make them remember what you did and why you did it. Because, in the end, it's the why that truly matters. ------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow: Mollie Cox ♻ Repost to help others 💾 Save it for future use

Want to build a UX portfolio that actually gets you interviews? It starts with a strong case study. I created this simple outline for one of my mentorship clients, but it was too good not to share. If you’re a UX or product designer on the job hunt, this can help you tell your story clearly, show your impact, and stand out from the crowd. Here’s the case study formula I recommend (plus a few tips to make yours even stronger): 🔹 Background/Context: What was the project about? What was your role? Timeline? 👉 Tip: Keep this to 3–4 sentences. Add a visual of the final product. 🔹 The Problem: What problem were you solving, and why did it matter? 👉 Tip: 1–2 clear sentences. Bonus points for "before" screenshots or user quotes. 🔹 Discovery: How did you get up to speed? 👉 Tip: Share your research highlights and key findings. Show evidence of collaboration with your team and stakeholders. 🔹 Design & Iteration: How did you approach the design? 👉 Tip: Include early sketches, whiteboard sessions, and messy Figma explorations — it shows your thought process. 🔹 Testing (+ more iteration): Who did you share your designs with, and what did you learn? 👉 Tip: Summarize the feedback you got and how you incorporated it. 🔹 Impact/Outcomes: What happened because of your work? 👉 Tip: Even if the product didn’t ship, focus on what you learned, how you moved it forward, and what impact you had. A few key reminders: MAKE IT SCANNABLE. Use visuals, headings, and type hierarchy to guide people through. Tell a story. Move through your project step by step so it’s easy to follow. Be selective. You don’t need to show everything you did — just enough to show the problem, your thinking, and the outcome. Hope this helps someone out there polishing their portfolio! If you want the full template (including extra tips), feel free to DM me — happy to share. 🚀 [EDIT:] I'm so glad y'all are loving this! if we're not connected, please include a note in your connection request so I can send the full template your way. Cheers! #uxdesign #productdesign #portfolio #uxcareer

Confession: While I've reviewed thousands of portfolios, I've never read a case study all the way through. I ALWAYS scan them. I just don't have the time to look through every detail. And I know that most other folks who are reviewing portfolios are doing the exact same thing for the same reasons. This means that your portfolio should: 1. Make it easy to scan 2. Use big, high quality visuals 3. Tell quick, concise stories 4. Most importantly, make that story easy to consume in two minutes or less If I were to build my portfolio today, here's how I would do it using these principles: 1️⃣ I'd have a top overview section that has a short blurb of what to expect/what I accomplished AND the final mockups/prototype of what I created. 2️⃣ I'd write out each case study using a word document first to make sure that my headlines told the entire story quickly and concisely. I'd use a classic story arc 1. Context/background 2. Conflict 3. Rising action 4. Climax 5. Falling action 6. Resolution The simpler version of this is the 3 Cs of storytelling: 1. Context 2. Conflict 3. Change (AKA what improved as a result of your work) 3️⃣ I'd optimize my headlines below the overview to tell the story of what I learned. Once everything was written out in a Google doc, I'd edit everything down to the essentials. I'd make sure to pull out the important learnings/quotes and make them big so reviewers could easily scan them. 4️⃣ I'd break up sections with large images to make it feel more interesting and less fatiguing. 5️⃣ I'd ask friends and family to read it and provide feedback about clarity and how much time it took them. If they can easily understand it, see my impact, and quickly go through it, then I'm on the right track. 6️⃣ I'd use LinkedIn and adplist.org to find more folks to provide feedback. Again, I'd focus their feedback on clarity and the amount of time it took for them to go through it.

After reviewing thousands of design portfolios over the years, I’ve noticed a critical mistake that 90% of designers make: they don’t demonstrate the impact of their work. It’s not enough to showcase polished visuals or detail your design process. What truly sets a portfolio apart is highlighting the difference your work made. And remember, impact isn’t always about boosting revenue or hitting business KPIs. It comes in many forms: • A Success Story from a Single User: Maybe your redesign of an app feature helped a user complete tasks twice as fast, reducing their frustration and improving their experience. Sharing that story shows empathy and real-world impact. • Influencing Strategic Decisions: Perhaps you presented user research that convinced stakeholders to pivot the product strategy, leading to a more user-centric approach. That’s impact at a strategic level. • Enhancing Team Dynamics: Did you introduce a new collaboration tool or workflow that made your team more efficient and cohesive? Improving the way your team works is a significant contribution. Tips to Showcase Impact in Your Portfolio: 1. Tell the Story Behind Your Work: Go beyond the final design. Explain the problem, your approach to solving it, and the resulting positive change. 2. Include Testimonials or Feedback: If possible, add quotes from users, team members, or stakeholders who benefited from your work. 3. Highlight Diverse Impacts: Show a range of impacts—user satisfaction, team improvements, strategic influence—not just business metrics. 4. Use Before-and-After Comparisons: Visuals or data that illustrate the difference your design made can be very compelling. By clearly demonstrating your work's impact, you show what you did and why it mattered. This makes your portfolio memorable and sets you apart from many others that focus solely on aesthetics. Remember, your designs can make a difference—in people’s lives, your team, and your organization. Make sure your portfolio tells that story. Have you highlighted the impact of your work in your portfolio? I’d love to hear how you’ve showcased it!

I’ve reviewed hundreds of UX/UI portfolios These 3 elements are often missing 1. The iterations of your design and the reason for the iterations Don’t hesitate to share the iterations of your design work. And don’t just show the designs, but include explanations for the changes. Was it user feedback? Usability issues? Stakeholder request? Showing before and after images, along with explanations of the changes are great for this. This shows recruiters and hiring managers how you handle feedback and apply it to your work. 2. The impact of the project What was the end result of you completing the project? Include this at the intro of the project. Recruiters and hiring managers like to know the difference your work has made. Re-iterate the impact at the end of the project. It’s also a great idea to show the impact on your home page where you show all your projects. Recruiters and hiring managers want to know the impact you’ve made. Sometimes it’s difficult to measure this, especially if it’s a project from your coursework. At a minimum, share what you would measure to determine the impact of the project. 3. Challenges/Learnings/Takeaways Include a section at the end of your project to share: - what you learned - challenges that occurred and how you overcame them (you can also do this throughout the explanation of your project) - anything you would do differently This helps the recruiter and hiring manager understand your learning aptitude, your growth as a designer, and how you handle setbacks. They know that in the real world there will be setbacks and challenges. Show them you can handle this. What would you add to this list? #uxdesign #designportfolio

New Year, New Portfolio Tips This week, I spent a significant amount of time reviewing portfolios with talent—one of my favorite activities. Having examined hundreds over the past three years, I've gained a good understanding of what clients seek, irrespective of job title or industry. First and foremost, a hiring manager is unlikely to spend more than a minute or two reviewing your portfolio. If your work isn't easy to navigate and your top projects aren't immediately visible, you're doing yourself a disservice. The best portfolios feature key projects on the first page, allowing viewers to quickly grasp the person's contributions by reading a brief snippet at the top and viewing images, wireframes, or other relevant content below. In the UX/UI world, showcasing your entire process from end to end is crucial. Most importantly, remember that less is more. It's better to have 4-6 standout projects than 12 lacking detail. Hiring managers typically focus on the first few projects to understand your experience and design thinking, making decisions on the next steps from there. If you're seeking a new role in 2024, invest time in refining your portfolio with this thought in mind: If someone has one minute to review my portfolio, will they understand my work experience and design thinking process, enabling them to decide if I align with the job they are hiring for?

93% of Junior UX portfolios I see don't do this. 😔 👇 ↳ Reflect Real-World Problem Solving: → Many portfolios show beautiful interfaces but fail to show the designer's process of solving problems that matter. 💡 Pro tip: If you're new to UX, don't use bootcamp or school projects only. Get freelance or hackathon work as case studies. ↳ Have Personal Branding: → Many UXers don't give enough background on themselves. Companies hire you, not your 𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐨. ↳ Showcase Collaboration and Feedback: → It's rare to see a designer's ability to: ✅ Work on a team ✅ Articulate their working process ✅ Show their design changes based on feedback ↳ Show the Research Process: → The best case studies tend to: ✅ Showcase qualitative and quantitative data to back their designs ✅ Incorporate their insights into their solutions ↳ Show Empathy and Understanding: → I've noticed many junior designers have zero context to their users and the business in their case studies. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯: → Don't demonstrate their problem-solving process → Don't tell me why they did what they did and why it matters → Don't explain why their solutions help users and the business 🥇 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻: ☑ Craft a compelling story for your case studies that don't bore your reader to death ☠️. ☑ Show the results: what went wrong, what went right and what did you learn? ☑ Show how you've worked with others and leveraged feedback in your designs. ☑ Show your research process, how you gathered and interpreted data, and why it informed your design decisions. ☑ Articulate what problems you tackled and why. Show your thought process and how your design solves these issues effectively. ☑ Please for heaven's sake, get a real portfolio website. In this competitive market Dribbble sites, Behance sites, PDFs, and Figma files are not enough. ✨ Portfolios are hard to maintain and even harder to grow, but if you care about your UX career they are worth it. --- PS: What's stopping you from finishing your portfolio? Follow me, John Balboa. I swear I'm friendly and I won't detach your components.

For product designers currently looking for a job, I've noticed some common mistakes through career coaching. Here are some tips that I found useful while navigating 20+ onsite interviews 🙌 1️⃣ Special Flavor - Brand yourself with unique skills that help you stand out among thousands of candidates.  - For example, growth and strategy are my superpowers. Once I decided to highlight these as my strengths, I secured almost every interview for such positions.  - Identify and showcase the best aspects of yourself! 2️⃣ Storytelling - Almost 90% of portfolios I've seen follow the same format, resembling an outline rather than a well-crafted story.  - Storytelling involves highlighting the ups and downs of your thinking process and the impact you made.  - Focus your story on【problem-solving】by emphasizing 3 key elements for each project: problem, solution and outcome. 3️⃣ Scope - Many junior designers’ portfolios lack scope. A single webpage design or a few UI pages are insufficient to land an offer or even get an interview. You need to convey a comprehensive understanding of your projects. - Your portfolio should demonstrate that you are a strong product thinker and that your designs exhibit a high level of polish and craft. 4️⃣ Depth - Similar to scope, a lack of depth is a common issue. Apply critical thinking to your projects by considering: *What is the human problem you’re solving? *How do you know it’s a real human problem (i.e., what research insights or data support this)? *Why does the business care about this? What business metrics or outcomes might the solution affect? *What was the actual outcome of this work? *Was it successful? Did you meet or exceed the business metrics? *Knowing what you know now, what might you do differently? 5️⃣ Wisely Choose Projects to Highlight - Avoid showcasing too many projects in your portfolio. Two to three highly polished projects are sufficient. - Choose projects that complement each other. For example, one project might focus on product thinking and strategy, while another highlights your visual and motion design skills. - A former boss once joked that the worst project in someone’s portfolio reflects their true capability😂, so only showcase your best work!  - Additionally, reduce the length of your portfolio, focusing on product thinking, visual design, and interaction design. During an interview, you might only have around 20 minutes to present one project, so leave room for questions. 6️⃣ Prototypes! - Static UI pages are no longer enough. Those who can showcase engaging prototype/animation skills have a much better chance of securing an interview opportunity. Hope this helps 👍 !! Best of luck in landing the job you want! #interview #career #offer #portfolio #jobsearch #interviewtips #tech #productdesigner #ux #landyourdreamjob

Recently I reviewed 100+ design portfolios. Here is what surprises me the most. 👇 Designer’s tend to hide their impact, results, and achievements. But why? 🤔 If you have measurable outcomes and results, be proud of them! Highlight them. Promote them. Make them easy to find. Don’t bury them in a large paragraph at the end of a 10 minute case study. These metrics are often what sets you apart from a crowd of applicants. The reality is every applicant is claiming to be “passionate” and to have the same skills (research, design, collaboration, etc…) But not every candidate can claim the specific impact and results that YOU have achieved. This is often what sets you apart. Here are some easy ways to promote them: → Put your biggest achievement in the title or subtitle of a case study. → Highlight your results in a quick summary at the top of the case study. → At the end of your case study, use visual hierarchy to highlight and promote your impact instead of burying it in a thick paragraph of text. In addition: → Add your accomplishments in your resume bullet points. → Add your accomplishments on your Linkedin profile. If you don't have measurable results, that's okay too. But if you do, be proud of them! Thoughts? 👀 #ux #userexperience #design #portfolio #resume

I've reviewed thousands of UX portfolios since 2017, and here's one of the biggest mistakes I see: Your portfolio feels like it's selling the product you worked on. But in reality, your portfolio should be selling the product of YOU. Too many portfolios focus on the end features and shiny design, but they miss the mark by not highlighting the process and decisions that got them there. Here are a few things recruiters and hiring managers really want to see in your UX portfolio ... and hear in interviews 😉 - How you arrived at a decision or solution - How you iterated based on user feedback - What trade-offs you had to make and why - How you navigated challenges or constraints - How you collaborated with cross-functional teams - What you learned and how it informs your future work - Why you chose a specific type of research, method, etc - And honestly, so much more ... but I'll leave it here for now Your portfolio isn’t just a showcase of what you made; it’s a showcase of how you think. Helping UX and Product people create stronger portfolios that equip them to talk about their work in interviews effectively is just one of the "5 Sprints" we do inside Career Strategy Lab's 3-month UX and Product Job Search Accelerator. You can learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gjeyFT8P Feel free to DM me here on LinkedIn if you have questions or use the chat widget on our website. Hope this re-frame about UX portfolios helps you see how you might improve your own portfolio so it meets the needs of your users (aka recruiters and hiring managers) 💜 #ux #uxdesign #productdesign