Self Study

Building a UX portfolio and communicating your work

Lisa Apers

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How to build a portfolio

Have a look at the following table to determine what you should focus on in your portfolio

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https://www.figma.com/file/RZQ2S4gah2hmd1FwWwlUc1/Untitled?node-id=0%3A1⁠

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How to build a portfolio when you’re new to design | Inside Design Blog <p>Creating a portfolio is the ultimate chicken-and-egg situation: you need a portfolio to land a job, but without professional experience […]</p> www.invisionapp.com⁠

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Have a look at the following portfolios - in class we will discuss why we think they are good or not

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UX Portfolios: 30+ Inspiring Examples (2024) A curated collection of 32 beautiful user experience designers portfolios—all clean, accessible and easy to use. www.sitebuilderreport.com⁠

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How to communicate my work

Have a look at the following video

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Have a look at these 6 commandments:

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6 commandments of running a design crit.png

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How to mitigate tough conversations

Being a designer is more then creating logical user flows and sparkling UIs. A big part of the job is communication, advocating your work and evangelism. Apart from design critiques you will most likely encounter difficult conversations. Below are some cases and how you can mitigate those. In class we will discuss some other examples.

Convincing your manager to prioritize user testing

Don’t say: We need user testing because that is what a good design process is

Instead say: I have some concerns about the design approach for this project. It is clear to me that the conversion rate is very important but since it is a new feature/app/website and we can only rely on desk research. It would be great to have some quantitative user insights. If we do it early in the process the costs will be low and we avoid the risk of a bad user experience which will only increase the conversation early on.

Telling a client you will not make the deadline

Don’t say: I’m sorry, I can’t make the deadline on Friday, can we postpone it with a week?

Instead say: Know that this is okay, but be sure to be transparent about it. For example: Unfortunately it looks like we are not getting the deadline we were aiming at. We are still waiting for some user test results but it looks like we’ll have them by Friday. However, we have used this time to do some more research and it appears that the other direction seems a good alternative in case the development costs would get too high for the current solution. The point of the story is: be transparent and pro-active.

Telling your manager that the planning is a little tight to do proper research to get the results they want.

Don’t say: this planning is unrealistic

Instead: Show which activities you need to do to get to the desired result. Attach an estimated time to those activities and discuss which activities can be cut out and how that will impact the results. This way, they have a better understanding of your statement and you make the decision together.

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Checklist

In class we will be showcasing some portfolios and discuss why they are good or not - I am ready to take part of that discussion

In class you will be presented with some situations in a design critique session with peers or stakeholders - I am ready to be part of these situations and conversations

In class you will be presented with some situations where you’ll have to mitigate a tough conversation - I am ready to take on these conversations in a professional manner

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