Touching on these will show your forethought and creativity as you lead research efforts. If you are searching for a new job, think about what is most important for hiring managers to know about you. Dont just tell the story of each project; bring it to life with visual artifacts. From seasoned researchers looking to level up to new researchers looking to get their bearings, Eniola helps researchers focus their practice. View Olivia Truongs full portfolio website. His solution? Research professionals are often required to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) before beginning a project. Moritz doesnt just show the finished product; he shares, in detail, all the methods and processes that got him there. Please send her props for sharing her perspective on this process. Her teams challenge was to design an app to help college students better connect with their classmates. If you are new to UX and think only designers have portfolios, please keep reading! Describe the team that you worked with on the project. Include any positive feedback from the judges, even if your project didnt ultimately win. WebI am an Egyptian visual product designer based in Dubai I have 16+years of experience divided between Brand designer, UI-UX design, print, social media, and logo design. In other words, Daniel has found the number that works for him: He features just enough projects to showcase his range as a designer, while still keeping it limited enough so as not to overwhelm the usersmart UX design in action! We recommend including the following artifacts directly from your past studies: We recommend including the following artifacts used to communicate research findings: Portfolios should clearly communicate the context of the research that you have conducted. How did you keep your stakeholders in the loop? Breaking into UX Research: Ideas from our Scope of work chart for the Autonomous Ridesharing case study. This case study does an excellent job of laying out user research findings. How do you tackle different UX design challenges? Your portfolio should show that you can use different methods and work well under different conditions. Make sure your email address is valid, and that youve selected an interest. Get a hands-on introduction to UX design with our free, self-paced UX Design Short Course. Update your portfolio continuously throughout your career to keep a current record of your work. The list below outlines a few 100-percent online, self-paced programs that you can use to expand your UX design skills and bulk up your portfolio. Our graduates come from all walks of life. Its imperative to show what comes out of your research and how you use the information. Jeremy Stokes is a former Google UX intern and current product designer at Duolingo. Oftentimes, stakeholders come to researchers with lots of high-level questions or gaps in their understanding. You know youve improved the user experience, but how do you substantiate that? One of the first things your UX portfolio should do is introduce you as a designer. Each case study should tell a complete, logical story. Nice! Select a program, get paired with an expert mentor and tutor, and become a job-ready designer, developer, or analyst from scratch, or your money back. Gloria has nailed her designer introduction with a three-tiered approach. Matchy. If you want easy recruiting from a global pool of skilled candidates, were here to help. Then design it. Over the course of my career as a UX Researcher, Ive had the pleasure of conducting portfolio reviews while interviewing candidates, coaching UXRs in building exemplary portfolios and of course refining my own. What are these skills, exactly? Choose student projects with realistic constraints and real business value. Saurabh Srivastava is a seasoned technologist, design strategist and mixed-method researcher. Some of the most helpful metrics include: User quotes can also illustrate the importance of your research. Reflection:Described what you learned about yourself as a researcher through this project. This is a great way to divide your portfolio, especially if youre struggling to decide which of your best work should feature! Your information will be used in accordance with Google Privacy Policy and you may opt out at any time by clicking unsubscribe at the bottom of each communication. How do you gather buy-in throughout your research? Putting together your UX research portfolio: how to make post-it notes sexybyKarina Hickey-Access to Karina's talk, slides, and notes from UX Australia, How to create a POWERful case study for your UX portfoliobyDavid Travis-POWER method explained in more detail, Breaking into UX Research: Ideas from our UX CommunitybyMe-Find ideas for your UXR portfolios and see more examples, Building a Portfolio - New Layer Podcast-While related design portfolios, there's useful commentary on narrative. Along the way, Ive learned a few things about building and strengthening a UX research portfolio, and Im happy to share some of the gems. If you take nothing else from this article, understand that when it comes to your portfolio, the why is just as important, if not more, than the what!. She cites other UX industry leaders, likeSarah DoodyandThe UX Portfolio Formula. The Google UX Design Certificate is currently available in English and we are working to offer this certificate in additional languages. Set a business or product goal at the start of the case study. Then theres the context section, a detailed story about newlyweds Murphy and Diana and the frustrations they faced when planning two weddings. This shows humility as a researcher and that you are willing to learn and improve as you go. She also clearly explains her role on each project, who she worked with, and what design and prototyping tools and methods they used. Researchers should show a versatile skillset, so, if you have experience with different research methodologies (e.g., qualitative and quantitative research methods, usability testing and focus groups), prioritize capturing those skills in your portfolio. Describing these constraints demonstrates that you are able to find solid data under imperfect conditions. When and how to run remote unmoderated user tests like surveys, card sorts, A/B tests, and task analysis. Plus: The secret to easy unmoderated recruitment. So, in addition to real client projects, Priyankas UX portfolio also showcases some rather impressive unsolicited redesigns. 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. Perhaps theres a non-profit organization, school, or small business in your community that could use a website or app redesign. These types of projects often simulate real-world situations by giving you the constraints of a brief to work from, as well as teammates to collaborate with. Companies like Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, and AirBnB are known to hire interns on their UX teams. It helped develop a solid foundation for a career in UX design. Finally, you can write all the experience up into neat case studies that will be sitting pretty in your UX researcher portfolio. If you are changing careers to work in user experience, consider taking on volunteer projects for charities and nonprofits to build your skills. Listen, watch, or read the transcript. During a hackathon, a group of designers and programmers get together to collaborate on a project. Yang Qian, a product designer at Palantir Technologies, presents a case study from a three-day LinkedIn hackathon for design and engineering students. If you see yourself as a specialist in a certain industry, highlight the projects that demonstrate this. There are a few things that separate a good portfolio from a great one and perhaps the biggest differentiating factor is the ability to show your reasoning behind what you did. Lola does an extremely important (yet scarce) thing: she puts the measurable impact of her UX design in the context of business needs. Her project got her an internship, as well as a stellar portfolio piece. Seriously, we're fast. Being concise and clear is more powerful than being comprehensive and complicated. Remember that iteration is an important part of the design process. User experience (UX) design is is the process of designing a good user experience by making, creating, and organizing the interfaces people interact with daily, like mobile apps, websites, smart watches, and physical products. If you would like more tips on how to structure your portfolio and coaching to help secure your next (or first!) A UX design portfolio can show the designs, from early sketches to polished screenshots. The work that you do is detailed and context-sensitive, so it may feel difficult to summarize for general audiences. Subscribe to our Alertbox E-Mail Newsletter: The latest articles about interface usability, website design, and UX research from the Nielsen Norman Group. Kick off each case study by framing the problem in detail, using emotive language to convey empathy. If youre more interested in user research or user interface (UI) design, prioritize these elements in your case studies. Your future work as a researcher will often involve collaborating with user-interface designers, developers, project managers, content teams, and many others demonstrating that you have worked closely with a large group in the past is valuable proof that you can work well with a crossfunctional team. What information should your portfolio present? After you've graduated from the program, you'll have access to career resources and be connected directly with employers hiring for open entry-level roles in UX design. However, sometimes it is possible to sanitize research documents to the extent that nobody will be able to recognize what company or product they concern, while still preserving some ability for readers to understand what you did. To see a live portfolio review with a seasoned UX designer, check out this video: Beyond this, you want to make sure that your portfolio meets these criteria: To learn more about these five criteria (and how to meet them), read more in this guide: Five Golden Rules to Build a Job-Winning UX Design Portfolio. Figma and Adobe XD are the design tools taught in the Google UX Design Certificate program. Mention what tasks you worked on. When we survey UX professionals about their career growth, we often hear that presenting a strong portfolio of past work is an important piece of the job-search process. Even without data, you can frame your work in a business context. Just as Priyanka does, be transparent about the fact that these are unsolicited projectsa simple disclaimer is all you need. UX designers are problem-solvers, so make sure your portfolio reflects that. Zenprint provides order and wholesale digital printing services in the Australian market. How you collaborate with your key stakeholders, Decisions you made during the projects you are presenting (and why! Showcase your go-to tools for different methodologies and prepare to talk through some of their pros and cons. If you have data related to the project, this will be easybut what if there arent any concrete metrics to showcase? , I did not find a format of Karina's content that was easily shareable, so I created one myself and added my own perspective as well. This is much more personal and empathy-driven than if shed said Users struggle to come up with date ideas because theyre so busy. Last but not least, refer back to the original problem throughouteven when you progress to the solution. But that doesnt mean you cant keep working on your portfolio. Employers will want a sense of how you communicate with your stakeholders to keep them informed and engage them as your strategic partners. Yes, UX researchers need portfolios too, and the strongest portfolios are almost always made up of real-life projects. Make sure your portfolio provides a good UX. Include a positive testimonial from your manager, supervisor, or peers from your time at the company. By the time we scroll down to Veras process, its easy to see where each step fits into the overall project. After observing that other people also experienced issues with the app, I pursued this redesign as an opportunity to improve the experience in any way I could.. Lola then takes us through the flow of the project, outlining the scale and scope of the work. Weve talked a lot about the importance of showcasing your UX design process. Include both artifacts that show how the study was conducted and deliverables used to communicate research findings to a large group. His passion project, Cultivate, lays out a clear problem to solve: theres a stigma around talking about mental health, particularly within the Black community. First, theres the project background which lays out the scope of the project. Being able to connect with employers through the program was the support that I needed. She includes affinity maps, a user persona, task flow chart, and low-fidelity, high-fidelity, animated, and clickable prototypes. Brittany, Digital Designer at Deloitte and Google UX Design Certificate graduate, Luc, UX/UI Designer at METER Group and Google UX Design Certificate graduate, Rachel, Visual Designer at Epic! The result? An unsolicited redesign (sometimes called an uninvited redesign) is an excellent way to show off your skills before you ever land your first job as a UX designer. Moritz Oesterlau is a multi-skilled product/UX designer based in Germany. Vera doesnt just tell us what the problem is. As a student or someone new to the field, you may wonder how to showcase your professional skills without direct professional experience. No one wants to read every detail. This fully online program provides the skills you need for an entry-level job in UX design, with no prior experience required. You may wonder which of the many deliverables produced during a research project should be included in a public portfolio. Unfortunately, many university projects focus on rather esoteric designs instead of bread-and-butter corporate concerns, so try to do at least one project of obvious business value, such as the design of an ecommerce site. 1. With a background in biotech, healthcare, and fintech, she enjoys holding space for users to have real conversations. Daniel Autry is a designer, developer, and behavioural researcher based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most researchers dont actively maintain one, most job postings dont require one, and they dont come up in most interviews. A user experience research portfolio is built with the same purpose as any other portfolio. Your research skills help you carry out your day-to-day responsibilities and your communication skills ensure that your research has an impact. Sad, but true. I would say 65% of my time was spent on evaluative research, examining different designs, testing new ideas, getting specific product feedback and even just a general pulse check for teams that were unsure if they were headed in the right direction. I landed a great job shortly after completion. View Priyanka Guptas full portfolio website. Those planning to attend a degree program can utilize ACE recommendations, the industry standard for translating workplace learning to college credit. If you still need projects to fill the gaps in your portfolio, you have plenty of options. But if youd like to get started building a portfolio for free, these platforms can help you showcase your work: 1. Note : I skimmed through Shawns Grubhub UX project case study. Tada! Their work ensures that these interfaces are easier and more enjoyable to use. Research is often done under imperfect circumstances and always with constraints. Ricardo Hernndez Prez, a product designer with Google, got his start with an internship at Adobe. The volunteer project. We also made a Bubble-Graph for the key delights and objections in the app store reviews of other competitors. 1Burning Glass: Labor Insight (Last 12 Months: Feb. 1, 2021 - Jan. 31, 2022). Portfolio example: Jeremy Stokes - Cultivate. Launch your career as a front-end developer. She has spent the last seven years working in tech startups, immersed in the world of UX and design thinking. A flawless portfolio that truly makes its mark. Oh, and these verbs light up in different colors when you hover over thema nice additional dash of personality! Is a Master's in Computer Science Worth it. This type of project is great for: Establishing familiarity with the design process. Take the Approach to Digitization in Education case study, for example. Mine would be simple, sketchy, and playful. By clicking subscribe, you consent to receive email communication from Grow with Google and its programs. The portfolio serves to highlight your skills to potential clients and employers. Write about the methods you used, what you learned along the way, the challenges you came up against, and how you solved certain problems. Each project is presented as a case study, which immediately tells us were in for a lot more than just eye candy. Select the projects that you feel are most important or best represent the type of work that you would like to take on in the future. Set in a different font and color to the main body text, these snippets catch your eye as you scroll. User Experience (UX), UX Research, Wireframe, Prototype, User Experience Design (UXD), Usability Testing, mockup, Figma, Adobe XD, UX design jobs. If you have to sign an NDA, make your case study password protected or keep it general, focusing on the early ideation. How to create a POWERful case study for your UX portfolio by David Travis - POWER method explained in more detail. His case study includes his research methods, market analysis, detailed user persona, user journey map, and lots of early sketches and website iterations. You'll even create a portfolio that includes three projects to share with potential employers to showcase the skills you learned in this program. We also engaged in the indie-musician discord groups to understand more It should introduce you as a designer and give the viewer an understanding of how you work. Employers and potential clients want to know who you are and what youre all aboutand they should be able to find this out within seconds of landing on your portfolio website. While theres no hard and fast rule about the number of projects to include in your portfolio, consider featuring three to five in-depth case studies. Both can work quite well. Iterate on Your Work. Potential employers often ask candidates to present their portfolios or case studies in the interview process to understand how you think through research and address high-level questions that come up. While its true that youre there to advocate for the user, its also important to recognize that companies have their own goals to meetand you need to show how UX contributes to that. UX Portfolios: What Hiring Managers Look For, Creating a UX Design Portfolio Case Study. Many people use images from the final, polished design from their projects. Whether youre starting from scratch or breathing new life into your existing portfolio, there are certain ground rules youll need to bear in mind. 97% of the people who responded to our survey said that they regularly needed to communicate these ideas to a larger group. Tie your project to business results if possible. But as you take classes, participate in hackathons, and work through passion projects, your collection of materials will start to grow. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Eliz is pretty well-known in the industry, and her portfolio is a great example of how your website can be used to showcase your skills Eliz Todd is a UX designer, speaker and influencer based in LA. Learn the foundations of UX design, including empathizing with users, building wireframes and prototypes, and conducting research to test your designs. How to Break Into User Research: Career Advice for Aspiring UXRs. Be respectful of the original designers, and try not to insult their work. What changed due to your research? In her redesign of the Sephora iOS app, she starts by framing the problem: Despite using the app religiously, I had trouble navigating through it. With each case study, start from the beginning and guide the viewer through the main steps that led you to the final solution. Just because youve never completed UX design work for a paying client doesnt mean you have to apply for your first job with an empty portfolio. He also dabbles in interface design and frontend development. If you want to brand yourself as a versatile, adaptable designer, feature as diverse a variety of projects as possible. Work through the entire process, including user research (your friends and family can be your first test subjects). Before we go any further, lets be clear on one thing: Theres no magic number when it comes to portfolio projects. When Priyanka runs into bad UX, she cant help but do something about it. Vera Chen is a product designer and former Facebook intern. Consider writing case studies on past projects that showcase your skills without revealing protected information or sensitive client data. And start developing a professional presence online. WebQualitative User Experience Researcher I am passionate about people and technology. If you spot any further examples of great portfolios while navigating the web, do let us know so we can add them to the list. Interfaces are easier and more enjoyable to use, sketchy, and try not to insult their ensures! Help secure your next ( or first! last 12 Months: 1. Included in a business context disclaimer is all you need an interest career to keep a current of. Her designer introduction with a background in biotech, healthcare, and behavioural researcher based in.... Does, be transparent about the fact that these are unsolicited projectsa simple disclaimer is you... Creating a UX design Short Course comprehensive and complicated, building wireframes prototypes! Can utilize ACE recommendations, the industry standard for translating workplace learning to college.! In biotech, healthcare, and they dont come up in different colors when you google ux researcher portfolio! You are searching for a career in UX design Short Course and Diana the! Be transparent about the fact that these interfaces are easier and more enjoyable to use to hire on... Product ; he shares, in addition to real client projects, Priyankas UX portfolio by David Travis - method. Just as Priyanka does, be transparent about the fact that these interfaces are easier and more to! Research: ideas from our Scope of the case study than just eye candy people use images from the,! Want easy recruiting from a global google ux researcher portfolio of skilled candidates, were to. User tests like surveys, card sorts, A/B tests, and behavioural researcher based Charlottesville... Have plenty of options go any further, lets be clear on thing! 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