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When you don’t have polished mocks to show, your portfolio IS the portfolio
Thoughts from someone who’s looked at a bunch of em.
Portfolios are hard. They’re supposed to represent your philosophy, process, work breadth, and skill sets. They’re supposed to tip the odds of getting a job into your favor. But every hiring manager, recruiter, and potential teammate has something specific they’re looking for in a candidate’s portfolio. And you’re working in a limited medium: a website.
Lots of people have already written great advice about the finer points of building a design portfolio. But I want to focus on UX, product, and design, because this still feels like a very uneasy relationship.
We sometimes lull ourselves into a mindset of “as long as I have strong case studies and sharp examples of my work, it doesn’t really matter what the portfolio looks like.” Or worse, we send a Dribbble link and call it a day.
But that would be like shipping a brand new iPhone out in a plastic baggie. Or pouring a beautiful, hand-crafted soy candle into an unwashed jelly jar. It’s hard to value the product because of the packaging. And the product in a UX portfolio is more finicky than a website design or an app flow.
Maybe, when you’re not a traditional…
