8 Completing the picture

”In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away”¹
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The vast majority of UX portfolios that I’ve reviewed contain only an introduction and a collection of case studies. That’s all. It’s a good start, but adding additional information that supports and reinforces your qualifications can positively set you aside from competitors.

Process

I often see portfolios with a section dedicated to process. It is often unnecessary — the case studies typically convey the designer’s process. There is usually no need for a dedicated section.

There are some circumstances where it would be worth adding. The first is when non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) limit what you can write. The other is when the process used in your case studies don’t match what you believe the hiring manager will want. For example, if your previous work indicates a ‘waterfall’ process and you know the client runs ‘lean UX.’ If you are confident that you could work as the prospective employer requires — and only if this is the case — adopt the process as your own and describe it as your preferred option.

In both situations, describe each step in the process and why it is important. Include extracts from sample (or obfuscated) documents where you feel these would add color.

If your preferred design process is based on a known model, provide the creator with credit. However, avoid simply cutting and pasting a well-known diagram of it and describe the process with your own words instead. After all, if you imply that you can’t explain the design process yourself, hiring managers could rightfully question why.

Training and Education

Education is one of the most critical sections to have in your portfolio, after case studies. Training demonstrates interest and enthusiasm for your chosen field, particularly if it is ongoing throughout your career.

If you are looking to move from one area of design to another, complete courses in the new field and highlight them within this section. For example, if you are looking to move from research to design, explain the design courses that you have completed.

If you are a recent UXD graduate, explain what you learned (and achieved) during your course so that hiring managers understand they are not starting with someone green.

If you are a more experienced practitioner who has completed a significant number of classes, list the courses grouped into topics to demonstrate a breadth of knowledge.

Otherwise, highlight the training that you think will be most attractive to the portfolio reviewers.

Figure to come

Don’t scan your certificates into your portfolio, one per page. I’ve seen this, and it’s unnecessary. A description of the training you completed is considerably more useful to a hiring manager than the certificates you obtained.

Awards and honors

These indicate that previous employers, peers or others — those awarding the prize — valued your work. Formal recognition suggests a high level of skill and a strong work ethic.

If you have a list of awards, I’m jealous. Create a page for them, preferably with a photo of you or your team collecting the gong. If you have one or two awards, add them to the appropriate case studies.

Add academic honors to the Training and Education section.

Volunteer work

A 2016 Deloitte study of over 2,500 hiring managers in the USA revealed 82% of them prefer candidates with volunteer experience. 92% also said volunteer activities build leadership skills.²

If you feel your volunteer work is relevant to your UX career goal, include it. But don’t get carried away and load your portfolio with every single good deed. Be selective.

Treat your volunteer much as you have your case studies. Ensure you spell out what you achieved. Quantify your accomplishments. For example, if you co-founded a local UX event, explain how you planned it and how many attendees regularly turn up. Make it clear that it was a significant amount of responsibility.

Some careers advisors believe that job applicants should avoid highlighting volunteering experience related to religion, politics, and sexual orientation in job applications. My advice — for all it worth — if your volunteer work is important to you, why would you even want to be considered by an employer that would discriminate against you for it? (If a company discriminates against you, it’s their loss.)

Activities and Interests

As we’ve discussed, hiring managers want to know that you can do the job, but they also want to feel that they want you to do the job. They will be looking for an indication of how rounded you are as a person and how well you will fit in with future colleagues. Activities and interests can help here.

Activities and interests can also differentiate you from other applicants and introduce topics for discussion at interview. (Interviewers always raise the fact I trained as a professional Chinese chef when they have read my portfolio in advance. In fact, it’s how I know they have.)

Professionally-relevant interests

In the UX design field, examples of professionally-relevant interests include writing, photography, and coding. They are excellent skills for a UX designer to have.

Amateur theatrical work or singing in a band are also relevant - both indicate creativity and confidence — crucial when applying for a role that includes facilitating workshops, mentoring and handling stakeholders.

Non-professional activities

Non-professional activities would include working part-time behind a bar or in a shop, both of which suggest an interest in people. Studying abroad counts too – it indicates an interest in engaging with the world as a whole. These are admirable traits for a user-centred designer.

How to choose what to highlight

Don’t go crazy and list every interest you have. Focus on the activities that you feel will interest your portfolio reviewers. But, do be honest. No shark-taming unless you really did. Choose activities and interests that you love. Don’t fabricate them. You just won’t explain them as enthusiastically or passionately, and the interview panel will be able to tell. Be prepared to show off your skills if asked.

Also, be specific. For example, don’t say reading, when you can say what you’ve been reading.

Speaking engagements

Employers like active industry speakers. People who present well are often singled out for leadership roles. Contributing to industry conferences portrays you as a thought leader, and as an educator of your peers. Hiring managers will consider that you have expertise in your field and are passionate about the industry.

If you have a presentation that you believe will strongly resonate with the portfolio reviewer, lead the section with it and include a short description adapted from the original conference program. Include attendee numbers, if possible, and some of the positive comments from attendees that you collected through the survey mentioned in Chapter 4.

Otherwise, list the title of each of your presentations and where they occurred. Embed or link to online slide decks or videos of the presentations where possible.

Figure to come

Writing and podcasting

Blogging

Blogs have passed their peak, but remain a useful tool for business professionals to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise.

The key to success is having a focus. General topics don’t tend to lead to substantial audiences. Avoid creating a general design blog. Try to narrow down your topic of interest to the point where it becomes different from what sites like UX Mastery³ and UX Matters⁴ do.

If you are new to UX design, document your journey as you develop your skills. Hiring managers have advised me that they are interested in seeing this as it demonstrates commitment and interest.

A few guidelines:

• Build authority by creating and sharing useful content. Write regularly, preferably once every one or two weeks.

• Share important stories, adding commentary to demonstrate your expertise and experience.

• If an experienced designer, consider blogging about the basics of the design industry. We could all do with a reminder of the fundamentals.

• Link to case studies as you add them to your portfolio.

• Do interact with those who leave comments but don’t get into arguments with them, or other professionals. Don’t hide from criticism. Respond and move on.

If building a web-based portfolio, highlight the latest blog entries on your homepage, underneath your key case studies. For a PDF portfolio, list posts that you feel will resonate most with your intended portfolio reviewer. For each entry, post the title, link, a short description and, if, appropriate the number of views and comments.

For greater distribution, re-publish your blog post to Medium⁵ and LinkedIn Pulse⁶ around two weeks later. Link to the original blog posts from the foot of the new copy.

Notable blogs

UX for the Masses – From UK-based UX designer Neil Turner.
http://www.uxforthemasses.com/

I Am Not My Pixels – From BBC Weather Creative Director Yael Levey
http://www.iamnotmypixels.com

Ebooks and downloads

If you lack the time needed to post regularly to a blog, consider creating something valuable for prospective clients or employer to download. This document might be some solid research, a white paper, or an ebook.

This kind of giveaway is compelling as it is useful. It’s the type of content that gets passed around. So, add a cut-down version of your portfolio to the back of the document. Make sure they know who provided the download.

Email Newsletter

Email newsletters have resurged in popularity over the past couple of years with some small agencies and individuals successfully launching new ones. As with the blog, try to focus on a topic. Give people a reason to subscribe to you and not somebody else.

Notable email newsletters

Indi in your inbox – A bi-monthly newsletter from Indi Young covering stories and tips about the practical application of empathy and design strategy research.
http://indiyoung.com/newsletter/

UX Design Weekly – Kenny Chen’s hand-picked list of user experience design links, published every Friday.
http://uxdesignweekly.com

Links of interest – All the interesting links, stories and stuff that UX consultant Joe Leech has tweeted recently.
https://mrjoe.uk

Podcasting

Podcasting is more complicated than blogging, but potentially more fun. As with blogging, narrow down your topic of interest. Ensure you are clear on who your intended audience is.

Buy a high-quality microphone, so the audio recorded is as best as possible. If you interview people over Skype or similar, encourage them to do the same.

People often listen to podcasts when they are traveling. So, 20-40 minutes is a good length. Don’t worry too much about keeping to the same length each episode - vary the length as the guest or topic deserves.

Regarding tone, aim for relaxed and conversational but not a party that nobody else can join. To keep things tight, write your introduction and closing. If you are interviewing, don’t write down questions, but do research and work out the topics you want to cover.

Try publishing once a month at first. Switch to every two weeks when you feel comfortable. It can take five or six episodes before you get into your stride.

Figure to come

Notable podcasts

Dollars to Donuts – Steve Portigal’s podcast on user research.
http://www.portigal.com/podcast/

UXpod – Gerry Gaffney’s long-running user experience podcast.
http://uxpod.com

What is Wrong with UX – Laura Klein and Kate Rutter yell at each other about how to make products suck slightly less.
https://www.usersknow.com/podcast/

Publications

If you have written a book or magazine article, display a summary of it with the front cover and any lovely review comments. Link to a sample online chapter, or to where folks can buy the book.

If you’ve written several books or magazine articles, congratulations. I feel your pain. In that case, lead with a summary of the one likely to resonate with the portfolio reviewer first. Then list the others. Finally, enjoy your favorite beverage. You deserve it.

Client testimonials

Most of your portfolio is you talking about yourself — who you are and what you have done. Testimonials from clients give you the opportunity to have others reinforce your claims.

There are also things that only other people should say. Describing yourself as a ‘UX thought leader,’ for example, will seem big-headed, but not if a former client or colleague says it for you.

Present edited highlights from the LinkedIn testimonials you gathered after reading Chapter 4. If you are an employee, you can also plunder your performance reviews for suitable comments.

Figure to come

Interviews

Interviews with the media suggest they find your work notable. If the press regularly features you, set aside a page for interviews in your portfolio. Link to each one accompanied by a short summary. Present the collection as ‘Here’s what I have been up to recently.’ rather than ‘Here’s how great I am’. Nobody likes a smart ass. (I know.)

If you have fewer interviews, which concern specific projects, add them to the appropriate case studies.

Professional associations

Membership of certain professional associations such as the IxDA⁷ and UXPA⁸ suggest that you are keeping up to date with the design industry and developing useful contacts. If you’re changing career into UX design from another field, membership of a professional association can indicate that you are serious about making a shift in career.

However, this information doesn’t justify a whole page — add the information to your portfolio introduction or biography instead.

Patents

Patents are valuable. Companies, universities, and individuals make money from them. Startups actively try to create their value through registering them. (Nest’s ownership of patents was thought to be a significant driver for why Google purchased them in 2014.)

Designers are likely to be involved in two primary types of patents.

Utility patents

These patents - also known as ‘patents for invention’ — are issued for ‘the invention of a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof.’⁹ They make up approximately 90% of the patent documents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in recent years.

U.S. Patent 7,657,849¹⁰ is a good example of a utility patent protecting a design element. Titled ‘Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image,’ it relates to the sliding to unlock feature use in the Apple iPhone and iPad.

Design patents

Design patents are much rarer and harder to obtain. The design submitted for consideration must be:

• non-obvious,

• new and original, and

• an ornamental design for something that has a function

A design patent protects only the aesthetic, decorative aspects of the design, but it’s not limited to static elements. The “page turning” in Apple ebooks is a good example of an interaction protected by a design patent. It’s U.S. design patent D670,713.¹¹

As design patents can cover many plans that provide the same function, it’s probably no surprise that the companies with the most design patent portfolios have products that are functionally indistinguishable from competitors. Examples include shoe manufacturers Reebok and Nike, and consumer electronics firms Casio, Sony, Sharp, Seiko, Hitachi, and Toshiba.

How to display Patents

If you have patents, be selective and limited. Focus on what is relevant to your target employer or client.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)¹² suggests listing patents as follows:

[Last name, first name of the inventor.][The title of the invention.] [Country Patent number,] filed [Month Date, Year,] and issued [Month Date, Year.]

For example: Iizuka, Masanori, and Hideki Tanaka. Cement admixture. US Patent 4,586,960, filed June 26, 1984, and issued May 6, 1986.

If the patent is pending, adjust it slightly:

[Last name, first name of the inventor.][The title of the invention.] [Country Patent Application number,] filed [Month Date, Year.] Patent Pending.

Follow each patent with a summary explaining the impact or value of it in plain English.

Social Media

According to a 2016 survey by CareerBuilder, 60% of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates.¹³ So, your social media profiles are likely to be checked by a potential employer regardless of whether you incorporate them into your portfolio or not.

So, keep your posts professional in topic, language, and tone, particularly if you include a feed in your online portfolio website. Never share anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with an employer. It may be worth considering having work-only social media accounts that are public and keeping the personal accounts for a select group of friends.

Ideally, ensure your social media content is consistent with your portfolio and leads viewers back to it. Add your education, work experience, and skills to your Facebook profile. Complete your LinkedIn profile and cultivate a strong network of contacts. Collect recommendations as described in Chapter 4.

If using Twitter, join conversations around the UX industry. Be enthusiastic and polite at all times. A good hashtag to check is #uxdiscuss.

Thank You / Next Steps

As we discussed in Chapter 5, your contact details (or a link to them) should be on every page of your portfolio. So, you may consider having a ’Thank you’ or ‘Next Steps’ page to be redundant. However, they can prove and effective way of getting your personality across, as this example from website design and development agency Jabberwokie¹⁴ indicates.

Figure to come

Things to Avoid

How you got into UX

Everybody has a story about how they got into UX, but most hiring managers suggest saving it for the interview.

What I love about working in UX

The portfolio is about indicating how you will meet the viewer’s needs, not yours. You can omit this unless you wish to use it as a way to communicate that there is particular work you are not interested in doing.

Quotes from other designers and business people

If I had a pound or a dollar for every Steve Jobs quote I’d seen in a portfolio, I’d be a very rich person now. A UX portfolio is meant to be about you and your past work, not the work or statements of other designers or business people. Yes, you may like the quote, but it doesn’t really tell a hiring manager much about you. Apart from the fact that you like the same quotes as other people.

So, just don’t bother. Unless you know somebody willing to give me a pound or dollar for every Steve Jobs quote I see. If that’s the case, please let me know who they are, then go ahead and add in a quote.

Resume / CV

Hiring managers expect the resume or CV to be a separate document if your portfolio is a PDF. If you want to include it, add it to the end of the PDF and keep the page orientation the same.

High-resolution photographs

Only if you are Jakob Nielsen.¹⁵:

Parodies

Again, only if you are Jakob Nielsen.¹⁶

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we discovered:

• Adding additional information can reinforce your qualifications and positively set you aside from competitors.

• The key is to ensure the elements will interest your prospective employer or client.

• Valuable elements to consider including Training and Education, Awards and Honors, Volunteer Work, Activities and Interests, Speaking Engagements, Writing and podcasting, Client Testimonals, and Patents.