4 Preparing your UX portfolio

“Good design cannot rescue bad content.”¹
Edward R. Tufte

As we learned in Chapter 3, assembling your UX portfolio at the last minute is likely to lead to poor results. When a hiring manager requests your portfolio, you want to be able to fine-tune it for the role, not have to gather material in haste and start from scratch.

The more groundwork you complete in advance, the better your portfolio will be. In fact, the best portfolios are living documents and regularly updated as you work. Preparation begins when you start your career and ends when you retire.

This chapter introduces the activities a hiring manager will often expect to see referred to in a portfolio and discusses everyday tricks and tips that should make building your portfolio easier. You may be surprised at how much preparation this chapter suggests. (I was certainly surprised at how long this chapter took to write, as was my editor at O’Reilly.) However, the great thing is that all of the groundwork referenced should make you a better designer.

Take care of the fundamentals

Hiring managers expect stories about your work process. Bearing in mind the nuances discussed in Chapter 3, portfolio reviewers will want to see your portfolio reference fundamentals including:

• having a design process

• identifying business requirements

• talking with (or observing) users

• working well with others

A good portfolio cannot hide poor design work.

Having a design process

If you have a spare few days, a search with Google or Bing will deliver thousands of design process diagrams or outlines, all written with varying degrees of pretentiousness. One of the most pragmatic and popular is the ‘Double-Diamond’ process from the British Design Council. It boils down to these key steps or phases:

1. Discover – The project team sets out to learn about user needs, business needs, competition and any constraints that the final solution needs to accommodate.

2. Define – The goal during this phase is to develop a clear brief that accurately frames the design challenge. A project team cannot find a real solution until they know (and have clearly defined) what the problem is. Sometimes the most important thing a UX designer can do on a project is to ensure that the project team takes this vital step.

3. Develop – It’s time for the project team to improve and refine design ideas. They will often prototype and test multiple solutions before selecting the final design proposal. This phrase often incorporates documenting the solution so that it can be approved and delivered.

4. Deliver – This is the final production and implementation of the solution. It may not be the end of the project. Further testing and redevelopment are possible.

The activities in these four steps may overlap or be repeated. It’s entirely possible that you may decide to conduct further research during the Discover phase as you clarify the problem, or during the Develop phase as you test the solution. You may also revisit the Define phase if it becomes apparent during the Develop phase that you have defined the problem too narrowly or too broadly. Just don’t start with the Deliver phase - it is unlikely to end well.

Whichever design process you use, ensure you have one.

Identifying business requirements

The more you understand the business reasons for undertaking a UX project, the better your design, and the better the story you will be able to tell. If there isn’t a formal brief, write your own, even if it is just a few paragraphs in a notebook.

Often the high-level goal is to increase profit, efficiency, or productivity. Most businesses now understand that user-centered projects can:

• Increase sales and market share

• Increase customer retention

• Ensure a product works effectively and efficiently

• Fix a product that the business knows is performing poorly

• Ensure a product delivers on time without scope creep

• Get a product to market quickly

Talking with stakeholders

The question “What’s the one thing we must get right to make this project worth undertaking?” will often get you directly to the business requirements.

Great follow-ups include: “What does success look like?” and “How will we know we have been successful?” Both questions should give you something to check the project against later on - and you can choose to put that information in your portfolio.

Stakeholders and clients can find goals and needs difficult to explain. People can focus on the solution rather than the problem, which they find harder to discuss. Sometimes the work you are asked to do isn’t always the work that needs doing. If you believe this to be the case, gently encourage stakeholders to reveal more:

• “What problems are you hoping this solution will address?”

• “If we do not deliver this solution, what problems will users experience? How do we know?”

• “If we deliver this, what will users or the business achieve that they couldn’t today?”

• “I think I missed why we are implementing the system this way. Can you explain?”

There is also my favorite:
“It may be a dumb question, but...”

(This is the UX designer’s version of TV Detective Columbo’s “Just one more thing...”)

If the stakeholder’s response is too general, encourage them to be more specific. Be kind and gentle, but firm. “That is very helpful. I am wondering - what particular problem will this solution address for people?”

Do question anything you hear that seems to contradict what you already know. “I understand average basket value has increased recently. So, why are we looking to change the order process?”

Some stakeholders will interpret being asked to explain a business problem as an attack on their authority. You could advise them that ’Just because’ wasn’t enough in kindergarten and it is insufficient now, but I would not recommend it. (They are probably going to have to sign-off and agree on the designs later, plus you will need testimonials for your portfolio.)

Instead, take a breath and soften your question with a lead-in such as “Please tell me more.”, “That is really fascinating.”, “Can we take a step back for a minute?” and “Let’s explore that further.”

Agree S.M.A.R.T. objectives In November 1981, the magazine Management Review published an article by George T. Doran that discussed the importance of objectives and the difficulty of setting them. Called ‘There’s an S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives’, the article explained that goals should be:

• Specific — target a specific area for improvement

• Measurable — quantify or at least suggest an indicator or progress

• Assignable — specify who will do it

• Realistic — state what results can realistically will, given available resources

• Timerelated — specify when the results can be achieved

S.M.A.R.T. objectives are useful as they are clear and easy to track. Examples include:

• A 50% increase in order value within a year.

• Reduce calls to the support desk by 20% within three months.

• 200 more business inquiries via the website within a month.

• 1000 new email newsletter subscribers over the next year.

All of these examples would look great in your portfolio if achieved or exceeded.

Talk to users

What separates user experience designers from most other designers is that UX designers practice user-centred design. They ensure that the needs of end users are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. You are not a user experience designer simply because you create wireframes.

User-centered design requires that you understand:

• who your users are (and aren’t)

• the task that your users are trying to do and why

• any problems or context that would affect their ability to complete the task

Stakeholders may mention user needs, but they will not be aware of them all. What they share may also be unwittingly influenced by their expert knowledge, or by their desire to meet personal business goals.

So, there is no replacement for observing or talking with real users. Most portfolio reviewers will want to see that you have.

If you cannot talk to users, get close to them

Sometimes UX designers are denied access to users. Perhaps decision-makers are unconvinced of the benefit and cite lack of budget or time. Maybe corporate policy or bureaucracy is just too much of an obstacle.

If this is the case, try obtaining insight in other ways:

• Review existing analytics.

• Examine emails and public message board posts by users for insight.

• Seek permission to listen to support calls or interview support staff.

• Consider buying relevant third-party research from the likes of Nielsen Norman Group² or Baymard Institute.³

Do what you can to understand user needs.

Validate your solution

An alternative design approach, often popular with startups, is to come up with a hypothesis then test it. If this is your team’s approach, make sure that you document the theory, how it was validated, what the results were, and any changes necessary to the design as a result.

You may also wish to recite the mantras ‘Think, Make, Check’ or ‘Build, Measure, Learn’ while doing so. (I believe it is the done thing.)

Play nicely with others

Portfolio reviewers are rarely looking for troublemakers or those who work in isolation. They will want to know how you collaborated with other people.

The more collaborative the design approach, the better the result often is. Product Team Coach Adrian Howard believes collaborative design is important for three key reasons:⁴

• Ownership – Involving customers and stakeholders from the start means everybody participates in the decisions that lead to the final designs. As clients and stakeholders own the end result as much as you do, there is no need to sell it.

• Alignment – A sure-fire method for getting everybody on the same page regarding the vision for a project is to have them all working together throughout.

• Knowledge – You need to understand business needs as much as those of users. Having the relevant people actively participating throughout a project is far superior to relying on requirements documents.

Collaborate as much as you are allowed to

Of course, the amount of collaboration a company will allow will depend on their culture and organization. Whether you opt to facilitate regular workshops or pair design with colleagues, find ways to invite your colleagues into the design process.

Working walls A working wall is an excellent way to start conversations and communicate to everyone around you that your design process is open and welcomes contributions from others.

A working wall is a large section of wall or portable foam board given over to day-to-day UX design use. You could post up:

• Business/project goals and design principles

• Screengrabs or photos of physical products

• Representations of user journeys and information architecture

• Empathy maps and personas

• Workshop artifacts

• Google analytics reports and survey results

• Wireframes and final designs

Accept opinions and welcome critique There’s an old saying: Great designers do not fall in love with their solution. Great designers fall in love with the problem.⁵

We know a lot about design. It does not mean that other people cannot have excellent ideas.

So, lose the ego. Accept ideas from others and embrace critique. Respond with arguments and further thinking, not aggression. Reflect and ask questions. Avoid being defensive.

Never forget your ultimate goal: to solve a problem.

Listen, listen, then listen some more

Throughout a project, actively listen to what people say. Yes, I am talking to you. Put your cell phone down and stop fidgeting.

Listening provides room for those who need to talk through their thoughts to work things through. People with a bee in their bonnet⁶ may also feel that they have made their point, relax and be more forthcoming about other issues.

For the UX designer or researcher, being able to listen is a crucial skill.

Maintain a logbook or work diary

Note-taking is one of the most valuable skills a UX designer or researcher can perfect. It will undoubtedly help your work, but it will assist with portfolio production too. You do not want to be working on your portfolio weeks or months later and struggle to remember what you were thinking or why the project team took a particular decision.

Keeping great notes and a well-organized collection of project artifacts allows you to have your portfolio materials quickly to hand, but it can still be a challenge to remember the key details of every project without having to dive into detail – this is where keeping a portfolio logbook proves useful.

Some designers use Evernote⁷ or Day One⁸ for their logbook. Others use a LiveScribe⁹ or Moleskine.¹⁰

At the start of a project, set a page aside at the front of your logbook for each of these items:

• Core team – the colleagues you will collaborate with on an everyday basis

• Stakeholders – people with interest in the project

• Goals – the primary objectives, including success criteria/metrics

• Users – the target users of the design

• Activities – the tasks the project team will undertake to achieve the project goals

• Deliverables – the documents and outcomes produced

• Constraints – limitations or restrictions that will affect the final solution

• Milestones – key dates and events from the project timeline

As you obtain each piece of information, complete the pages with it or reference where else you can find it. Use the pages that follow these for day-to-day notes, using the note-taking techniques that follow.

Highlight to-do items, relevant facts, and questions

Use this simple note-taking scheme to make your notes more usable:

[] To do item

() To do item for someone else

* Important fact

? Items to research or ask about

Also, don’t forget these long-established symbols and abbreviations:

& = and

@ = at

b/c = because

Δ = change

∴ = therefore

-> = leads to

# = number

re: = regarding

w/ = with

w/o = without

Bullet Journal,¹¹ from digital product designer Ryder Carroll, develops note-taking shorthand like this into a full-blown task management, diary, and planning framework.

Use a variation of the Cornell system

If writing on paper, consider using a variation of the Cornell note-taking system, developed by Walter Pauk, a professor at Cornell University in the 1950s.

To use the system, draw a vertical line about a quarter of the way across your page. To the right of this line, write your main notes. They are allowed to be messy and a bit disorganized. To the left of the line, summarize the main points. You may also add to-do items and questions.

To summarize the whole page of notes, draw a horizontal line about a tenth of the way up the page. Then write your summary underneath.

Use the ‘AEIOU’ framework for field visits

If you are going to observe users at home or work, the ‘AEIOU’ framework will help you capture the right information. It was developed in the 1990s at Doblin Group by Rick Robinson, Ilya Prokopoff, John Cain, and Julie Pokorny.

The acronym ‘AEIOU’ stands for Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users. Before a field visit, divide a two-page spread from your logbook into five columns — one for each title, then complete each column as appropriate.

• ‘Activities’ are the goal-directed actions and behaviors you observe taking place. Look at the big picture as well as specific details. For example, adding a new user to the system vs. entering their first name.

• ‘Environments’ represent the places where the activities take place. There may be more than one environment. Take photos or make a sketch.

• ‘Interactions’ are the exchanges - face-to-face or long-distance that take place between a person and someone or something else. Who or what do they have to interact with to complete their goal, and how?

• ‘Objects’ are the artifacts that people in. These objects may include software or a web-based app or website.

• ‘Users’ refers to the people you are observing. Who are they? What are their names? What are their roles, goals, attitudes, and motivations? What are their capabilities with the product domain and with technology?

Record observations separately from notes. An observation is a record of something you see or hear, not your opinion or an idea for a new feature. Save interpretation of what you observe until later.

Also, avoid transcribing notes unless what you want to record an interesting direct quote. Use your own words instead.

Use data logging for usability test sessions

You can speed up your note-taking during usability test sessions by using an approach called ‘data logging’ that is popular with students of animal behavior.

I first learned about data logging from the usability consultant David Travis.¹² The technique involves noting down your observations as single letter codes. Here are the codes:

Code	Definition description
X	Usability problem
D	Duplicate usability problem
V	Video highlight - an “Aha!” moment
C	Comment (General comment from participant)
P	Positive opinion from participant
N	Negative opinion from participant
B	Bug
H	Help or documentation accessed
A	Assist from moderator
G	Gives up or wrongly thinks finished
I	Design idea (design insight from logger)
M	Misc (general observation by logger)

David says you should average about one observation per minute, but warns ‘observations are like buses: none for ages, then three come along at once’. He suggests you write down for each observation:

• The time.

• The code of observation.

• A short description.

An excerpt from a typical usability test may look like this:

Time	Code	Notes
4:35	M	Scans navigation options but doesn’t choose
5:10	C	“I am looking for a search box now”
6:07	X	Misses link to the ‘search’ page

Schedule sufficient time to review your notes

Observe six people in a single day, and they all begin to blend into one another. Ensure you schedule 15 minutes or so after each session to review your notes and add further clarification where needed.

Use the logbook for self-reflection

A logbook is a useful tool for reflecting on your work – this is something that all researchers and designers should do. Deliberately reflecting on your work will increase how much you learn from what you have done, and will also help you identify skills where you excel or need to improve.

Each day note down what you did and why. Add what went well and what went wrong. Ask yourself why. Keep asking yourself why until you get to the underlying reason for why things went well or not.

Now take it a step further. Ask yourself what you have learned that you can apply in other situations. Ask in what situations what you have learned will not be useful. Ask - in the case of what went wrong - what you would do differently next time to prevent the thing that went wrong from happening again.

Finally, for your portfolio, highlight anything that was particularly useful or revealing that would also be of interest to your target portfolio reviewer.

Use the logbook to provide daily research updates

After you have completed your log book entry, send team members and stakeholders the following email, copying from your logbook as necessary:

Here’s today’s recap of today’s user research session. Please don’t use this information for design or development work - there will be a full analysis once we complete all of the sessions.

Participants:
(List participant groups and types)

What we did:
(Outline the research you did.)

Highlights:
(Key observations or findings)

Additional comments:
(Any other comments.)

Next steps:
(What you are doing next.)

Thank you for your interest. I will have another update tomorrow after the next session.

Optimize your deliverables

Document snippets or extracts from significant artifacts will bring your portfolio alive. You want everything you produce to look its best.

Make your UX documentation user-centred

I do not know how to break this to you, but people rarely read UX documentation for fun. They read it to get their job done.

Stakeholders will want to understand the proposed design and confirm that it meets their needs. Developers and others need to know what to build. In some companies, lawyers will need to be able to verify that the design meets legal requirements. UX documents need be useful and usable. They need to be user-centred.

Useful means that the document considers who the audience is, what their knowledge is, and what they need. Usable means that it is easy to understand and use.

UX designer Neil Turner recommends¹³ planning UX documentation by using the “Five Ws” (and one H), as memorialized by Rudyard Kipling in his “Just So Stories” (1902):

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Neil asks these questions:

• What? – What is the purpose of the document?

• Why? – Why is it being created in the first place?

• When? – When is it needed?

• How? – How will it be used?

• Where? – Where will it be used in the UX design process?

• Who? – Who is the material for?

Asking these six simple questions will help determine the right type of document to create or even if you need to create one in the first place.

Optimise documentation for the time-poor

Often the users of UX documentation will lack time, have a goal in mind, and dip in and out of your document. So:

• Ensure people know what they are viewing. – Include appropriate page titles and headings. Be consistent in layout and your use of annotations and highlights.

• Support scanning. – Get to the point and ensure that every word counts. Use highlights, callouts and other methods to communicate key points and actions.

• Summarise changes. – Make it obvious what has changed since the last version.

• Make it easy to follow and understand. – Number pages and annotations.

• Check spelling and alignment. – Typos and poor untidy visuals will detract from your work. Always proof-read. Ensure page elements are aligned and appropriately spaced.

• Be practical and realistic. – Scale images and content appropriately in wireframes. Making wireframes bigger, modules smaller, or reducing the amount of content unrealistically won’t help the UI designer who needs to make the functional requirements work in the real world.

For your sanity:

• Have template documents that you modify and iterate for each project.

• Use shared canvases and layers wisely. If you use an element more than once, consider sharing it.

• Spend your time where it will create the most value. Know when done is done.

Use photographs

Take photographs of everything. OK, maybe not everything, but ensure you capture the main activities and anything in particular that leads to an ‘Aha!’ moment.

During field visits, take:

• Pictures that capture the overall environment. Office exteriors and interiors, for example.

• Mid-range photographs that illustrate the research participant with other people and the objects they use.

• Close-up pictures of the participant interacting with specific objects.

• Close-up pictures of objects that the participant uses.

During workshops, look out for:

• Pictures that capture the overall workshop activity.

• Photographs that illustrate a particular outcome, such as a single empathy diagram or collection of related sticky notes.

• Close-up pictures of specific sticky notes and artifacts that are particularly meaningful or significant.

Always seek permission from participants to take photographs. If permission is not forthcoming, try sketching. You do not need to produce works of art. The drawings are intended only to remind you of the environment in which the participant exists.

Photographing sticky notes

A few thoughts:

• It is annoying for sticky notes to fall off the wall, so use good quality ones. When buying post-its, I always go for the ’Super Sticky’ variant, and they rarely let me down.

• If the sticky notes are sealed in cellophane-like plastic, momentarily squeezing the pad will break the seal and open them. It saves trying to find the irritating little end you need to pull to remove the wrapper.

• Avoid peeling the sticky notes upwards towards the adhesive strip as this will cause them to curl on the wall. Instead, peel the sticky notes off sideways and in parallel to the adhesive strip. You will get a flatter note. Promise.

• Use a good, thick pen like a medium-fine Sharpie so what’s written on a sticky note can clearly be seen (and photographed). Never use a ballpoint pen.

• Write in capital letters so what’s written is more legible.

• Keep to a single point per sticky note so you can move notes around quickly.

• Try and use color meaningfully. One color for requirements, another for features, for example.

Take screengrabs

If you work on websites or software, frequently take the time to screen capture the implemented designs. Capture the before state if there is one.

If you want to make regular screengrabs of a live website, Stillio¹⁴ is a web-based service that takes automated screenshots for a fee.

Third-party tools

If you use third-party web-based tools that are licensed to your client or employer, you are unlikely to have access to them after you leave the project. If your job contract allows, export copies of your work or if using an online prototyping tool like Flinto or InVision, create a screencast video of the prototype in action.

Keep organized

Get into the habit of saving everything. Organize it so you can find what you need months later. Don’t just dump material into a directory of portfolio stuff and tell yourself that you will deal with it later.

Folder structure

To help you find files quickly, ensure you have consistent conventions for folder structure and file naming.

When I start a project, I typically create a basic structure of empty folders within /clients/[client name]/[project name]:

/brief - what the client asked us to do
/research - documents related to research planning,
   execution, and results
/content - text and images needed for the production of
   wireframes and full development
/design - site map, wireframes, prototypes

This structure grows as the project progresses. I will often add an archive to each of the above folders to store old files. I may also create additional project-specific folders within the above directories. I try to keep the names simple, consistent and meaningful (for me and others who need the files).

For example:

/research/analytics
/research/site-crawl
/research/surveys
/research/usability-study

This approach has served me well for many years.

File naming

Let’s get the basics out of the way:

• Avoid using ‘special characters’ that may work on an Apple Mac and not a PC. These are:

~!@#$%^&*()‘;<>?,[]{}’“|.

• Avoid using spaces in file or directory names. Use underscores or dashes instead.

• Number files with leading zeros to ensure they sort sequentially in a directory listing. (0001, 0002, 1001, etc. instead of 1, 2, 1001, etc.)

• Use YYYYMMDD or YYMMDD format for dates – this will ensure chronological sort order.

• Keep filenames descriptive, but under 32 characters.

The information you may wish to incorporate into a filename may include:

1. Client name or acronym

2. Project name or acronym

3. A meaningful label that reveals the content of the file

4. A version number for the file

5. Whether the file is a draft or not

6. The date the file was updated

7. The initials of who last amended the file

For example:

disneystore-checkout-v01-02d-20160910-if.graffle
bbc-homepage-v02-03.graffle

Version tracking Use numbers to track file versions. Whole numbers indicate significant changes to a file. For example, v01 would be the first release, v02 the second version. Indicate minor modifications by adding a supplementary figure. For example, a filename containing v01-01 would indicate a small change has been made to the original file.

When draft documents are revised, they can carry additional information to identify the person who made the changes. For example, bbc-sitemap-v01-03-20161010ds.pdf – this reveals that the PDF document is version 1.3 of the BBC sitemap as amended by ‘ds’ on 10 October 2016.

Include a ‘change log’ within each document, noting amendments and their dates alongside each previous version number of the document. You may also wish to include a key to your file naming convention along with any abbreviations or codes you have used.

Actively seek feedback

At the beginning of your project identify the key stakeholders for the project and keep in mind that you are likely to ask one or more of them for a recommendation at the end of the project.

You may wish to invite key stakeholders to join your LinkedIn network at this point. If your LinkedIn profile looks good, reads well, and supports your work on the project, having key stakeholders join your network early on can build greater credibility.

Survey talk/workshop attendees

If you speak at conferences and local UX events, consider collecting testimonials from those who watched your talk or participated your workshop.

Ask your audience:

• What is the most important thing you learned from my talk?

• How do you think it could be improved?

• Any other thoughts or comments for us?

If you normally provide a link to your slide deck, Chief Experience Officer at BloomBoard, Stephen Anderson suggests linking to your online survey instead. Once someone completes the survey, provide them with the slides.

Also, keep an eye on Twitter for spontaneous, unprompted feedback. Use Storify¹⁵ to collate the tweets into a collection for easy reference later on.

Request LinkedIn testimonials

Employer or client testimonials in a portfolio act as the ‘proof in the pudding.’ It is best to request them as early as possible, rather than when you need them.

A recommendation from someone you worked for is stronger than a recommendation from a colleague you worked with.

When the time comes to request a recommendation, don’t just send a request via LinkedIn. People often ignore them. It can also come across as brusque.

Ask someone in person or via email if they would be happy to recommend you. Feel free to give them something specific to recommend. For example, “Would you consider talking about the role I played in launching the beta project?”

If you feel your relationship allows it, take this a step further. Suggest three specific personality or professional traits you want them to reference. For example, “Would you mind mentioning my dedication, my ability to work as part of a team, and my depth of experience in user research?”

When they agree, try sending your request within a day or two – this will increase your chances of a response. It is also easier for your reference provider as your contribution will be fresher to them.

Once you have received your recommendation, be sure to say thank you. Thank your contact again for the opportunity of working with them. It can do no harm.

Space out your recommendation requests a bit. They are date-stamped, so it is evident if you hastily rushed out and asked everyone you know.

Interview your clients

If you work as a freelance designer or consultant, consider interviewing your client at the end of the project.

Ask them:

• What benefits have you experienced from working with me?

• What specific results have you seen from implementing our solution?

• How successful was the project?

• What do you think I lent to the project?

• What surprised you about the project?

• What did you learn from the project that you did not know before?

As you close the interview with your client, ask if they would be willing to provide you with the LinkedIn testimonial.

Try a variation of this:

“I would love to get a recommendation from you for my LinkedIn profile - I like to request this from key stakeholders at the end of all my projects. If I send you a request via LinkedIn, would you mind putting something together for me? Feel free to keep it brief.”

Stay in touch

The harder you work at nurturing your existing relationships, the easier and more rewarding your career will be. So stay in touch with previous clients and co-workers.

Audit your previous career

The chances are that you have already undertaken some projects which you may wish to consider including in your portfolio – this is where I suggest something I have nicknamed ‘The Stockwell Spreadsheet’ comes in.

The spreadsheet was developed by UX Research and Strategy Consultant Amanda Stockwell after she started to pull her portfolio together and found it hard to remember all of her previous projects. The document contains a high-level record of the projects you have worked on, the work you undertook, and what the results were.

“The idea came from a straightforward content inventory or audit. When you do a content audit of a traditional website, you write down what the pages are, what the URL is, what kind of page it is, and so on. I took that same approach to my projects. I wrote down the kind of project it was, my role on it, the timeframes, the decision points, and, most importantly, the results.”

“I tried to find hard data that I could present as results so that I could say, ‘Look, here’s where my impact was. Here’s the difference that I made on each project.’ For example, I worked on a large ecommerce project that made sales go up a certain amount.”

Amanda recommends the spreadsheet contain these fields:

• Employer or Client

• Project

• Project start date

• Project end date

• Deliverable types as columns (Mark with an ‘X’ if completed.)

• Currently included in resume/CV (Yes or no)

• Portfolio-ready (Yes or no)

For example:

(Image)

Amanda suggests keeping the spreadsheet updated as you move through your career. I prefer the logbook for tracking your current work and see the Stockwell Spreadsheet as a useful tool for providing a high-level overview of past work if you have not previously kept a log. When it is time to update your resume or portfolio, you will be able to review the spreadsheet to see which project you might wish to feature.

Know what you want to do

Your portfolio reflects past projects, and it should include only work the type of which you want to do. Of course, this means that you need to know what it is you want to do.

There are multiple roles available in user experience.

Interaction Designers transform requirements into interfaces. At a minimum, they will run meetings and workshops, understand user needs and create wireframes or prototypes.

User Researchers help their teams to define and understand users. They will conduct research such as surveys, fields visits or carry out usability testing on existing products or mockups. They may also undertake expert or heuristic reviews and present research-based recommendations.

Information Architects bring order to chaos. With and understanding of business and user needs, they will define navigation systems, arrange content, create controlled vocabularies, develop taxonomies, and specify system rules, roles, and permissions.

Content Strategists are responsible for the planning, development, and management of content, whether it be words, pictures or video. They define the content required, the tone of voice of that content, and also the workflow for the creation and management of that content. It is all about content. I hope they are content.

Then there is the role of UX Designer, which borrows from all of the above to lesser or greater degrees, depending on the organization.

Once you have worked out the kind of position you wish to consider, there is the question of where to work.

Agency, in-house or independent?

Agencies

Agency roles can vary a lot, even if they have the same title. Some agencies specialize in UX design and have an unyielding focus on it. Others pay lip service to it. Most fall somewhere in-between.

There are particular challenges for a UX designer when working at an agency:

• Agencies need to satisfy clients. Decisions made to keep their customers happy may work against project goals.

• Projects are often short with the intention that the client takes over the final result at launch for day-to-day operation. Therefore, it can be difficult to see the result of the project or to take steps to revise the design further.

• Agencies often win projects by participating in a pitch process where they present creative ideas that contain minimal or no user research. If the discovery process reveals that the client’s users or customers need something different, it can be hard to get them to let go of the original creative concept they loved so much.

• It is common for clients to have multiple agencies working for them on different but related projects. The agency can lack the ability to make changes to other work that fundamentally affects their own.

• Payment from a client is often tied to delivery of a document such as a collection of personas or a report. Consequently, the design process may reflect what the agency needs to deliver for payment and not what the project needs.

However, there are also tremendous benefits. UX designers will receive:

• Exposure to a variety of projects and problems.

• The opportunity to develop a broad range of UX skills.

• Considerable experience in client service.

Corporates

There are exceptions, but corporates or larger companies tend to be risk-averse. They often have rigid processes in place and can be less interested in trying new techniques or ideas. The environment can be bureaucratic and highly political. Seeing the results of your work can take a very long time as each stage goes through a lengthy approval and development process.

On the other hand, you will often be able to follow and refine your design over time. Corporates also tend to offer relative job security, competitive salaries, benefits, and better resources at work. Promotion prospects are also often better than at other companies. One final, significant, plus: you are unlikely to be alone. There will be other UX designers across the organization to work with, learn from, commiserate and celebrate with.

Startups

At a startup, the focus is to get a product out fast, test and refine it. The UX designer’s role is often to bring order to what would otherwise be chaos. Startups favor collaborative design, but hierarchy still counts – founders will not hold back if they think a team decision is getting in the way of their vision.

Startup companies are experimental in nature so often open to trying new techniques or processes. Due to limited resources, the UX designer may have the opportunity to take on some different roles - they could be responsible for some aspects of project management, product management, and user interface design work too.

If involved at the start, UX designers can profoundly influence the product or service being made and get it from the outset. High financial rewards are sometimes possible, but given the number of startups that fail within the first year, they are not without short-term risk. Job security is far from guaranteed. Promotion prospects are unlikely, at least in the short-term.

Freelance

If you have a few years of experience, going freelance is an option. Many UX designers choose this route as they can work on the projects they want rather than what an employer gives them. You can potentially make more than as a salaried employee, but this comes with the risk of being unable to find work, at least occasionally.

What do you want to design?

Along with the role and type of company you wish to work for, you may also want to think about what you want to create. You could choose to specialize in software, hardware, websites, intranets, enterprise applications, web apps, or native mobile apps.

You could also specialize in a particular company domain, although this is best done later on in a career. Choices there include the financial, medical, pharmaceutical, gaming, and retail industries. Specializing in government or non-profit work is also possible.

How to choose

Nathaniel Koloc, Director of Talent Acquisition & Development, Hillary for America, recommends¹⁶ that you think about:

• Legacy This is about the concrete outcomes of your work. What do you want to achieve?

• Mastery - What strengths do you want to improve? For example, if you enjoy connecting with people, you could use that skill to be a psychologist or a marketer. The key is to use these strengths in a way that you find rewarding.

• Freedom - This is about the salary, benefits, and flexibility you need to live the life you want. Ask yourself which job will help you fulfill the lifestyle that you want.

• Alignment – This last category covers the culture and values of where you work. It is not about the mission of the company but whether you feel like you belong.

Answering these questions will help you shape the contents of your portfolio so that you attract the right company and deter those that are unsuitable.

Chapter summary

In this chapter, we discovered:

• The preparation of your UX portfolio should include ensuring you have a robust design process which identifies business requirements and involves talking to users about theirs.

• It also requires thinking about how you can best collaborate with others during a project.

• Maintaining a well-written logbook will help you remember the key details of past projects.

• The logbook can also be used for self-reflection and to provide daily updates to stakeholders.

• User-centered documentation and carefully taken photographs are important to bring your portfolio to life.

• Consistent folder structure and file naming will help you find source material for your portfolio quickly.

• It is important to encourage client feedback and keep in touch.

• You should think about how and where you want to work so you can focus your portfolio around this when you build it.