First steps toward your UX portfolio
"What projects should I be working on?" — you might be wondering. I will give you some pointers, and I'd like you to brainstorm some ideas on your own.
We talked about UX designers bridging the gap between business, users and technology. The idea of a product that is viable, feasible and desirable actually came from Design Thinking methodology popularized by David Kelly and Tim Brown from IDEO.
Of course, when looking for a job you can’t simply say “I understand that you need a UX designer to understand business goals, user needs, and technical constraints, and design and deliver delightful products that meet and exceed users’ expectations. I can do all that! Hire me!”. You have to show something for it. And that’s where a portfolio comes in.
What is a UX portfolio?
In essence, a portfolio is just a collection of case studies.
Each case study covers a design project, and it should showcase your thinking as a designer as it applies to solving a particular problem.
Ideally, it shows that you can
define a problem
solve it creatively taking into account three factors that we talked about: user needs, business goals, and technical constraints
validate or test solutions
In other words, it showcases your design process. We will look at the design process in detail later. For now, I just want to give you some understanding of what is expected from a portfolio.
There is no steadfast rule for how many case studies should be there. I’d say 3-5 case studies is good. It really depends on the quality of each, and not quantity.
You might not have any projects that you can showcase just yet, and that is fine. Actually, your own portfolio is a design project in itself, and probably the most important one even though it doesn’t count toward 3-5 case studies.
Think about your portfolio as a product. We can apply the same three factors we talked about to it:
A portfolio needs to meet users’ needs (recruiters hiring UX designer). What are they looking for? This is when browsing job postings is super helpful!
It meets your goals (to get noticed and land a job). You probably have an idea for what kind of work you’d like to be doing, perhaps also what industry/domain you’d prefer to work in.
There are technical constraints that need to be considered. That can be: your ability to produce wireframes, hi-fidelity mockup, or build a prototype, as well as time constraints.
It is important to consider these as you are looking for ideas for your projects.
UX project ideas
“So what projects should I be working on?” – you might be thinking. I will give you some general pointers, and I’d like you to brainstorm some ideas on your own.
I’ll also share some of my own project ideas that you are welcome to borrow if you’d like.
1. Improve an existing product
Just to get this one out of the way, redesigns of popular apps or websites won’t do, so don’t even think about it. Merely changing look and feel of a popular website or app might showcase your visual design chops, but it really doesn’t address the core skills required to be a UX designer.
Instead, find an app that you use, the one that meets your needs, but doesn’t do it really well. That’s a great candidate for redesign!
It doesn’t have to be a whole app, but just a feature, or a group of features.
It doesn’t have to be a popular app. But perhaps steer away from a very specialized app that very few can understand or relate to. And if it is specialized make sure it covers the domain that you are somewhat familiar with, so you don’t end up “improving” part of the app that are actually designed to be the way they are for a particular reason.
It also doesn’t have to be a problem that you face yourself. Perhaps, you observed a friend or a family member struggling with it. Actually, that might be even better! That way you can show them your redesign and get some feedback.
Another way to find a problem to solve is to look at app reviews on the App Store, or online forums.
In any case, it might help to think about particular areas of your life or work, and find an app accordingly. For example, I while ago I was very interested in bodyweight training, and particularly push-ups. I wanted to find an app that would help me keep track of my pushup sessions and progress. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of apps for that, but most of them are pretty bad. Most of them look pretty bad, but also are not very intuitive, so there are opportunities to improve on many levels.
2. Design a brand new product
Following that exercise, you might want to skip the idea of improving what is out there, and simply design a product from scratch.
You can design a product that will “compete” with what is already out there, or it can be something unique.
Again, think about your daily life. It doesn’t have to be related to your professional life. Think about your family life, your hobbies, your pets. Are there unsolved problems that you can spot? Is there an app for that?
Speaking of apps, I don’t mean mobile apps. It can be a web, a desktop, or even a smart watch app.
Ideally, your portfolio has a variety that covers different types of devices. Actually, one case study can cover several types of devices, but don’t worry about this just yet. Start simple, and start wherever you have the most interest.
There is one exception to this rule, and that you know exactly what devices you’d like to be designing for. Some designers focus only on mobile. If that is something you’d like to be doing long-term it is worth focusing your efforts on building your case studies around mobile apps.
Because you are not actually creating a business around your idea, you don’t really need to worry about what is already out there. Your case studies will not be judged by how original and innovative your projects are.
My project ideas you can borrow
As promised here are some of my ideas that I’ve thought about in the past few months:
Smart shopping list
Make shopping more efficient... no need to come back for items...
Entered items get sorted automatically by store/department
Water consumption tracker
Keep track of how much water I drink
Send reminders
Receipt scanner
Scan receipt line items and report on where the spendings are going ( bread, milk products, etc)
Back to school shopping list
Pick country > school > grade...
Check off what you already have...
Find best prices?
Find parking
An app that would lead you to a free parking space
Pomodoro Timer
You can see that some of them are more defined than others. Also some are more interesting than others, but all of them came out of my day-to-day activities and needs.
Brainstorming Ideas
I suggest you come up with a list of at least 10 different ideas for your portfolio project. Coming up with 5 will probably be relatively easy, but don’t stop there and get at least 10 no matter what.
Remember, they don’t have to be groundbreaking. Think about simple problems that can be solved with a simple product. Also remember that you will pick only 3-5, and you will start with just 1.
Feel free to share some of your ideas with me if you’d like to get some feedback.