Portfolio

Websites vs. slide decks and how to choose projects.

Overview

A portfolio is almost always required for design roles and typically the second thing your hiring manager sees after your resume. It can be a big factor into whether you move on in the interview process.

While you can get away with only using a website to show your case studies, we recommend that you also have a slide deck version that’s snappy and well-rehearsed. The website format is better for hiring managers, while the slide format is a lot better for live interviews where you need to capture the interviewer’s attention without boring them with every detail.

How do you know you are choosing the right projects to showcase? Should you limit yourself to strictly UX projects?

Unless the application specifically asks for it, you don’t need to limit your portfolio to any kind of project. Projects can be from your class, internship, volunteering, personal project, etc.

Interviewers are often looking for competence (how are your basic design skills), complexity (how challenging are the problems that you have tackled), and style (your unique design philosophies/preferences). One way to choose projects could be to pick one that shows your core thinking and design skills and one that is an interesting, challenging problem.

If you pursue other creative endeavors (ex. art, music, architecture, filmmaking, etc) that can show relevant skills to your ideal role, don’t hesitate to include some select highlights as long as they don’t overshadow your main content. Having a variety of skills is great as a designer!

Website portfolio (Required)

1. Create your website

Be sure to look at examples online for inspiration, but most importantly, make the portfolio on your own - you can show off your coding skills or use a no-code platform. Have a memorable landing page, highlight your strengths and personal interests, and include a bio section to tell your story - why do you do what you do? Extra professional points: get your own URL.

2. Choose your case studies

Include the projects that you are most proud of—highlighting 2-3 is great! It’s much better to have a few really high quality projects than lots of low quality ones. If you think you don’t have enough strong projects to include, try

generating your own side projects⁠

or finding a partner to collaborate with.

3. Curate

Make sure to highlight the process that got you to your final product, not just the project itself. Include research outlines, pictures, rough sketches, wireframes, anything you help you explain your design process. It’s okay to redo sketches if you think they are confusing.

Slide deck portfolio (Recommended)

1. Make your slides

Try to factor in the design style of your website portfolio. If you plan on using this during live presentations, limit the word count on the slide and allow room for bigger images - tell the story verbally and save your interviewer from reading everything themselves.

Google Slides and Figma, among others, are great for slide presentations.

2. Curate again

Take the content on your website and condense it into digestible chunks. If you need to cut time on anything, limit going into detail on research (unless you are specifically applying for a UX research role) and focus on your iterative process.

3. Time your presentation

If you want to be extra prepared, be ready to give 20-min (1 project), 30-min (2 projects), and 1hr (2-3 project) versions. Factor in time for transitions and potential questions throughout or at the end.

4. Practice!

Rehearse your presentation in front of real people—we recommend you to run it by anyone that is willing to listen. It doesn’t matter whether they are familiar with your work or not; you will know your presentation is clear enough if it can be understood by people both within and outside of the UX field. Plus, everyone will catch different things about your content and help you pare it down to what’s most important.