Creating a Portfolio

Honestly, I was dragging my feet when it came time to create a portfolio; it meant I had to figure out what website to host my portfolio on, choose my domain name, design a layout, decide if I wanted my website to be "just" my portfolio, or include other aspects of my life on my website, and decide what projects I wanted to talk about. When I first made my portfolio, I wasn't officially a UXer, I didn't have "official" projects (or so I thought,) I was just trying to break into the industry, so I thought I did not need one,  I did not want to make one, but I made one anyways. Here's why.

Do I actually need a portfolio?

UX Researchers and UX Designers need portfolios because the people we are competing against for jobs have portfolios; it's hard to compete in a job market if you're missing a component that several other candidates have. Additionally, hiring managers want to see how candidates think, how candidates organize work, and how potential employees communicate ideas, and the easiest way to do that, outside of a meeting, is a portfolio. Think of a portfolio as a way to show off, and less like homework. If you are passionate about user experience, then show that passion through your website.

What do I even put in a portfolio?

The portfolio is supposed to compliment the resume. It’s the deep dive. It’s the details about all of the behind the scenes work, meetings, and artifacts created. It’s the place where you talk about your challenges, what you learned, and maybe even what you would do differently. It’s your autobiography and your time to brag about your accomplishments. If you have a bullet point on your resume about accomplishments pertaining to a particular project or task, that is a good place to start for a portfolio project.

Ok, so, you obviously put your projects on your portfolio, but in reality, what does that mean? How do I choose a project, especially if you only do research, if you've never been a UXer, or if I've just completed tasks i.e. updated a screen? Everything "UX related" has a purpose. Ask yourself, did you make anyone else's job easier? How? Did you make a task shorter? How much shorter and what did you do to make the task shorter? Did you redesign a screen or an app? Why? You can show before and after images of the designs, you can highlight metrics like "this task takes 7% less time to complete" or "there are 23% less clicks to complete a task" or "discovered 5 product requirements and defined 3 personas through genrative research." Numbers make you look good, and you deserve to look good! 1 project every 1-3 years seems to be average for what I've seen in other portfolios.

The first thing I put on my portfolio was the project I was the most proud of. At the time, it was a project that I did 2 years ago. It was the project that made me realize that I enjoy user experience more than engineering. It also had a big impact on the company. I took a manual excel process and converted it to an automatic dashboard that was easy to share and easy to understand. Basically this project was EASY for me to talk about in an interview setting, and it was already listed on my resume, so it had to go on my portfolio. I had to recreate portions of the actual product from memory to help compliment my discussion points, but it was worth it, and I may still improve some of the images to better get my point across.

Where do I put a portfolio? 

Initially I put my portfolio on Behance. That was ok for my first year as a UXer, but I started getting negative feedback about using Behance. I was told, by Starbucks, that my portfolio looked like a social media site, and... well... it was. I didn't see the "issue" with it being a social media site, but it kept holding me back from getting past recruiter interviews. I had an interview with a different recruiter who said she loved my experience, and my education, but the hiring manager does not like portfolios hosted on Behance, Square Space, and Wix because they come off as lazy. I did not want to come off as lazy, so I chose another option. Webflow and WordPress allow for a lot of customization, and is widely accepted by the UX field. A free option is to create a PDF of your portfolio. I have not gone this route,  but have seen several Reddit posts about UXers creating a PDF of their portfolio, and getting hired.

How do I maintain it?

Maintaining a portfolio is still a challenge for me. I can be a bit of a perfectionist, or fall victim to analysis paralysis, and finding the balance can be difficult. First and foremost, I make sure my domain stays active, aka pay my bill every year. Secondly, I look at other UX portfolios and take notes about the things I like, the things I do not like, and I audit my own site, then make changes accordingly. Thirdly, I don't publish any incomplete project summaries, resumes, or blogs. I don't want anything to look like a mistake, or look like it is not important to me. These are the basic things I do to maintain my portfolio.

A new resource I've identified for helping me maintain my portfolio was getting feedback from my manager. My manager was able to tell me what information I can and cannot post to my portfolio regarding projects ,and he gave me direct and personalized feedback. Some examples include: use a template, don't include text in jpegs or png images, keep your blog up to date or remove it (ouch!), and keep the projects short and sweet. I can be a wordy girl, hence the blog section, but he was right. I can talk through these projects in my interviews, I don't need all of the words on the page. I removed the paragraphs from my website and put them in a google doc that I can review at any time if I need a refresher. I try my best to only highlight impactful information in bullet point format, or short paragraphs.