How to put together an effective and eye-catching UX design portfolio

A portfolio is arguably the most crucial asset for any UX designer. Most companies hiring for UX positions will only consider candidates if they provide a link to their work. A designer’s portfolio showcases the projects they have worked on, their thought and design process, and their skills, combining to convey the big picture of the type of designer they are. Given the importance of a portfolio, getting it right is in every designer’s best interest. But how does one put together a portfolio that is attractive yet clear, thorough yet concise, honest yet effective?

I hope to equip anyone reading this with all of the resources that I discovered in my journey, but without all of the time and hassle that I went through. This article will focus more on structure and logistical elements rather than word choice and writing style — after all, portfolios are very personal and unique to each designer.

Home Page

If you’re a designer with several projects under your belt and want to publicize your work, start looking at website hosting and domains. Some especially talented people will build their websites from scratch, but for the rest of us, there are several platforms that offer these services, including Squarespace, Wix, and Wordpress. I use Squarespace because I’ve found it to be relatively straightforward and attractive (you can also find discount codes if you look hard enough). *Find out more about getting started with setting up a Squarespace account here.* For a designer, it’s important to choose a template that includes a home page that will showcase all of your projects upfront. This may look like a vertical stack of banner images, a grid, or something else that shows multiple thumbnails, each linking to a distinct project.

Check out this example (as of 2017):

All of the projects that Carola wants to showcase are immediately presented to the viewer, and secondary links are easily seen at the top, but not distracting. She has a total of four case studies presented here, which is a good amount. Enough to show a wide range of experience, but not too many to be overwhelming. They also all fit on one page without creating the need to scroll down. Each thumbnail is appropriately branded and labeled with the project name and a descriptive phrase that concisely describes what kind of product it is, as well as displaying mockups that show sample screens. These elements give the viewer an idea of what each project is, without being wordy or overwhelming, catching the viewer’s attention and making them curious to learn more. This is the key. Getting eyes on your portfolio is one thing, but the majority of readers will most likely take just a few seconds to skim through everything without reading too much, or worse, get bored and leave before reading anything (the casual reader). Portfolios need to be structured so that even the viewer with the shortest attention span will stay, but also balance the need to cater to the occasional viewer who will actually take the time to critically examine everything. Always keep in mind who your readers are — most likely recruiters, hiring managers, and designers/design directors.

Case Study Pages

A case study page should tell and have all the basic elements of a story: introduction, development, climax, conclusion.

Side note: I strongly recommend finalizing your case study text prior to even starting a trial with your website builder of choice. A platform like Squarespace is not a word processor. Ideally, you should copy and paste all of your text from a separate source, such as Google Docs.

Showing what the final product looks like at the very top is important because ultimately, that’s what people care about. The mockup of your final product is the result of all your hard work, so display it with pride! I suppose this is a bit different from conventional storytelling, because you “spoil” the ending. But you’re not going into too much detail in the beginning. Make readers want to keep reading to find out how you got to that point. Practically speaking, a full-width banner image with bold colors and appropriate branding, as well as a mockup or two (mirroring your homepage thumbnail) is the most effective. Follow this with a short paragraph of what the project is about and its background. You should also include a list of details such as the project duration, how big the team was, tools used, and most importantly, what your specific role in the project was.

Following this, make your problem statement bold and clear. It doesn’t have to be too formal. Juxtapose this with your solution. This could be a parallel statement, or a combination of words and graphics once again showing your final product, but more specifically highlighting sections or screens that demonstrate how it solves the problem you just stated.

Once these items are taken care of, proceed to tell the story in a logical flow. The level of detail you go into and the overall length of the case study is up to you. Everything you’ve written up to this point should be enough to give the casual reader a good idea of the project background and what the final product looks like. They’d probably be fine moving on to another page on your portfolio. But for people who want to read more on this case study, make sure to clearly but concisely tell everything that relates to the work that you did. Structure the rest of your case study after the introduction like this:

1. Research — E.g. competitive analysis, interview and survey results, and personas (if any).
2. User flow(s) — Important to give an idea of how the app is meant to be used.
3. Ideation — E.g. information architecture/site map, sketches, low-progressing-to-high fidelity wireframes, usability testing feedback, annotated iterations, and before/after examples.
4. Final design — Complete prototype containing your highest fidelity wireframes. You could walk through a specific user flow, or just showcase different screens. Here is where gifs, an embedded prototype (more on this later), and demonstration videos should be placed.
5. Conclusion — All good pieces of writing need a conclusion to stick the landing. Talk about next steps first, because readers’ minds are still on the prototype. Then, if applicable, mention direct impacts of the work you did, such as specific growth or revenue metrics. Then, give it a personal touch by talking about what you thought of the project, and the lessons learned.

Graphics

Including graphics throughout is crucial, because people’s eyes are naturally more drawn to graphics than text. Your case studies should be structured so that someone who couldn’t read English could still get the gist of your projects. If someone is just skimming through, they might as well not know English. Your graphics should tell a complete story in themselves. Graphics could range from scans/photos of hand sketches, pngs of low-fidelity wireframes, flows, personas, graphs, survey results, etc. I would strive to make all graphics as “branded” as possible: match colors and typography to convey a unified feel. Here are some tools and tips to help with graphics:

• Reduce image size — tinypng.com is a service that reduces the storage size of your images, without a noticeable decrease in image quality. This is one of the best tips I have received. Think about it this way: if a webpage has a total of 20 high-resolution images, each ranging from 3–8 mb, it’s going to take a while to fully load. Remember, readers have short attention spans. You don’t want them to close the page and miss seeing crucial information just because some graphics were taking a few seconds too long to load. This applies across your entire site.

A recorded screencap from an I animation created in Principle, in gif format

• Gifs/Animations — Ezgif is a service that lets you create a gif of a series of screens. This is commonly used for demonstrating specific flows or different options. Gifs are usually more effective than slideshows because gifs are more seamless. On ezgif (or any other service), you can upload your images (after reducing their size), select the order and speed, and create your gifs. If possible, remember to include a device mockup around every screen to give the impression that the screens are transitioning within the device. Which brings me to the next item:
• Mockups — Use mockups as much as possible for standalone high-fidelity screens. Mockups are unnecessary for any low-fidelity wireframes that you may choose to include, but including mockups around screens makes them look more realistic, and not merely like simple graphics. That being said, for graphics like banner images and homepage thumbnails, a fully realistic device should be used, but for samples throughout the case study, using something minimalist is more appropriate. After all, the focus should be on the content of the screens; the device is merely a frame to provide context.
• Figma prototype embed — Showing samples of your final prototype is one thing; showing samples PLUS enabling your reader to interact with the prototype is exponentially better. Some case studies may provide a link that would open Figma in a new tab or window, but including your prototype directly in your case study makes life a lot easier for your reader. Recall some basic principles of web design: reduce cognitive load, eliminate unnecessary navigation, don’t lead users away from your page. Here are the instructions for embedding:

1. In the Prototype screen, click “Share prototype”, then “<> Get embed code”.
2. In Squarespace, select the “Embed” content block under “Basic”.
3. Don’t paste your code in the field that immediately pops up; instead, click the </> icon on the right side of the field and paste your code in the field that you get from there.
4. Hit “Set” and your prototype will be embedded on the page.

About Page

Include a high-quality picture of yourself that accurately showcases who you are. Try to have a photo that avoids clichés (selfie, Golden Gate Bridge, Fushimi Inari, Color Factory, etc). Next to or underneath that, put a short paragraph telling the reader who you are, what kind of designer you are, what sets you apart, and optionally, something fun about yourself. This page should take a step back from the portfolio itself and allow readers to hear firsthand from the human behind the designs. You could have amazing work, but if people don’t like you, they’ll stay away from you. Basically, communicate how stellar of a designer and person you are, therefore making readers interested and want to work with you. You could list things like your past experience, what you love about design, and anything else about yourself. Conclude the paragraph with an invitation to contact you regarding work. After this paragraph, include links to your resume and contact.

Other Pages

If you have other content that you want to include in your site, you could add another page or two. A designer I know loves to collect cacti, so he included a brief summary of that in a separate page. Another designer I know was a smart home system designer/programmer in a former life, so he included a page showcasing the work that he did in that field. I’m a photographer, so I made a page including a short blurb about what I love about photography, a gallery of my favorite images, and a section showing off my accolades. Basically, if you think there’s something you’re involved in and passionate about that has some relevance to design, feel free to include that!

Most website building services also have the capability to include social media links throughout your site. Add these if you consider them to be beneficial. Definitely include LinkedIn at least.

Miscellaneous

I would recommend setting the maximum width of your site to be as wide as possible (1280px in Squarespace). That way, you can include those full-width banner images, but use spacers to control the width of the rest of your content. This does require a lot of micromanagement to get the spacing right, but it’s worth the effort.

Including photos of yourself at work throughout the case study pages can be effective, because they add a more human element to a portfolio of primarily narrative and technical jargon. Also, if possible, embedding a YouTube/Vimeo link of a demonstration video is great, especially if you’ve created some slick animations that can’t be reproduced in Figma.

Conclusion

Putting together a portfolio can be stressful because it’s so important, and yet can feel so overwhelmingly complex. If you’re doing this for the first time, you also may have the added pressure of needing to finish it as soon as possible in order to even start applying for jobs. I believe that investing the extra time to make your portfolio great is much better than haphazardly throwing all your content together and presenting that to potential employers. All of the above is what I wish I had known at the very beginning of my process in order to be the most efficient. I hope this information is helpful and makes your portfolio-creating process much more streamlined and enjoyable.

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Portfolios mentioned in this story that you should definitely explore more of:

• David Leøng (me)
• Carola Pescio Canale
• Peter Travis
• Special shoutout to my mentor Paolo Ertreo, from whom I learned many of these tips.