5 Portfolio Tips to land your first UX job | UX Portfolio Review

hi everyone welcome back to my channel in today's video I will share with you five portfolio tips to help you Lear your first job as a u designer before I start a quick reminder I share

everything about D from portfolio reviews to design CRS and career growth tips on my YouTube channel if you're interested on this type of content please feel free to hit the subscribe so you won't miss end my future content so

I've learned that many people who want to become a ux designer share the same struggle with the overwhelming information on the internet talking about where to learn about U and what kind of tools you should know what are

the platform you should use to build your portfolio you know everybody have their own opinion and it's just so much noise going around and I learned that many of you are struggling with the

question that where should I get started here's my recommendation I think the best way to get into your is to work backwards which means start by reading

the job post get an idea what are the key skill sets are being evaluated and then you can focus on developing those skills while you are gaining project real project experience and showcasing

them in your portfolio you know to steer your thoughts one way you can think about this is ask yourself the question what is the last step of this process which is probably a job interview and

what do you need to get a job interview resume and a good portfolio what would you need to put together a really strong ux portfolio you will need to learn about basic ux knowledge and gain

project experience now that we have a strategy let me share with you a fantastic resource that could be pivotal in helping you become a ux designer simply learn as a premier

online learning platform offers a wide array of book camps and course designed to empower individuals in their career Journey you can Tye all courses and

browse all the programs and courses available or click into the categories to dive into the topics you're most interested let's take a look at product and Design so on this page you can

access the most popular product and design courses that can really unlock your potential with Dynamic product management and uiux programs it will

help you master the art of product strategy Yol mapping and learn to design intuitive and engaging user interfaces and experiences on this specific program

page you can learn all the highlights and details about this uiu boot camp it provides live online sessions delivered by industry experts plus it will even provide you portfolio creation

assistance on dribble as we browse it covers more about the book Camp details including the learning path which really gives you a bird eye view of how this

program look like it will touch the uxui factors influencing user experience design principles visual design wireframing prototyping the interaction design and design tools last but not the

least simply Learned was reviewed by Forbes in 2024 that balancing students engagement with flexibility if you are interested to become a ux designer please visit the link in the

descriptions below to try simply learn and take the first step towards advancing your UI ux career now let me walk you through a great portfolio example for entrylevel ux design jobs

and I will share with you five top tips on how to make your portfolio better and land your first job as a u designer so we're looking at this portfolio website

from J as you see the lending page is super clean and it has a consistent visual language I think this is a great card for displaying project information

on a cover page because it has some image with device that clearly tell this is a mobile app with this subtitle which says designing the crossplatform house

Tag app from 0er to one including branding and design system this gives me a really good idea of what this designer has done so let's take a look now we are

on the project page of palm mobile app how I created a startup's products to reflect users need and business goals okay this feels a little bit too general

you know I guess the point that this this designer want to say is that she was able to um conduct this product design meeting both user needs and

business goals but this is quite General and which probably applies to every single U project so what I think will make this line more valuable is to make it specific like what you have in the

headline in the cover page and if you have any data you can include the data to show and explain what is your impact as we scroll you will notice that there

is a index on the leftand side which serves a really good uh overview of what this project page covered start with about and go into background there is a

section talking about the timeline of the project and then design goals and constraints and then goes into challenge quote and learned three main challenges

that they face and corresponding uh Solutions has came up with I love this section there are so many portfolios that I have seen it talks about what user interviews you've done what other

challenge but there is often like a disconnection between what is the problem and what is the solution and I think this section did a really good job connecting what were the challenges that

were identified with what are the potential solutions that is being proposed like number one Jew fencing alert to address the safety concern number two Behavior tracking to address

the communication barriers and number three collaborative care to address coordination challenges so I think this is presented really well with some uh

icons which really makes the information stand out and Visually compelling now it has the Persona section and design

decision and then it has a compatitive analysis I think this is a great summary you know it's not only just comparing the information from different competitors but also lead to some

conclusion of what are the areas that looks good versus okay versus knes work that lead the designer into making the three key takeaways uh what she will be

focusing on including usability accessibility and modular design so I think you know this is a really a good way of Storytelling so it's not only

showcasing what the work this designer has done but also how has her work lead to the next step and help the team progress next session

ideation I think this is a good piece of information to Showcase that you have done site map or userflow um a little bit crique on the visual um it's a

little bit hard to read I like the color coding but it's the tax in there some of them are getting really small on my screen the readability is a little bit questionable I think there's some room

to make the visual assets here even better next major design decisions cool I love that this designer

is including a why box below each design decisions made because this is really the key area as a interviewer or hiring manager I would be seeking for to

understand what is the thinking behind like why you're making certain decisions so here for example GE fencing as homepage why and in this box this designer has explained because safety is

the primary concern for the primary user Persona um that is why this feature is being prioritized um this is a really good example of explaining Your Design

thinking and rationals behind any design decisions in a portfolio these are wireframes okay this is another I think a good element to

include because uh wireframing is one of the key skills as a ux designer should have but um the visual here is not very value adding I would encourage you to

make the hand sketch use a Sharpie or thicker pan to draw it so it's easier to look at when it's translated into a digital or scan image on the screen or

you can use some of the wireframing tools to make it easier to look at next high-fi prototype you know prototype is definitely another key skill set uh of

uiux designers so definitely encourag to include some of your examples here this designer also labeled those prototypes clearly of what each screen is showing which I think is very helpful then has

some design highlight of Streamlight on boarding clear visual hierarchy simple use and development in each section there is a brave paragraph explaining the design decisions and syncing be

height then it has a section talking about design system which is always value adding if you have the experience creating design system on

your project and impact yes finally impact this designer includes some data how has her design helped the product reduce development time and cost by 12%

a shorten the stabs during the onboarding experience and making accessing weekly Behavior track and Report easier those are really good

examples of using data to communicate your impact uh Next Step some follow up about app development and user testing

and reflection at the end so overall this is a really good example of a ux portfolio for first-time job Seekers why there are five things I wanted to

highlight number one visual matters you know throughout this case study and also the homepage the L image we looked at it has a very consistent look and feel

which has a very cohesive visual level language and this designer also use some illustrations icons and data visualizations to make this whole story

more visually compelling no matter you are a visual designer or not visual plays a huge part in your portfolio there are many things you can learn from

this example of how you can improve the visual storytelling in your portfolio the second tip I have for you is keep it simple and there are many portfolios

I've seen that has a long paragraphs a lot of text that can very easily make your audience feels overwhelmed so have a really good balance of taex and image

never rely on tax if that is the information you don't want your audience to miss you can create clear sections and also use those navigation tools on the left side that can really help your

users help your audience be uh able to navigate around to your portfolio very easily third tip storytelling I've seen many case that people are telling the story from a third party angle you know

I always encourage people to use your first angle in telling the portfolio story because this is a case to Showcase and to tell your story what is being evaluated here is not a company it's not

the product but how you as a ux designer have successfully solve a design problem so use your first angle to tell the story can make your portfolio FS more

relevant and compelling another tip is to cover the key u skills you know this is one thing I talked about at the beginning of this

video the strategy of working backwards one of the first step you should do to get into ux is to understand what are the key tools or skills that ux Designer

should know or will be using in your everyday job how to translate that in your work of course you can list it in your resume but person perolio is a very

visual way to Showcase um those skills and back to this example I think this designer did a really good job to Showcase her key skills from creating

High Fidelity beels to creating s map user flows wire Framing and High Fidelity prototypes those are all hitting the keywords that you will

probably see in 90% of the ux job post so focus on developing those skills and showcase it in your portfolio with the right context my last tip is to

communicate your impact with data you know as U designer especially as you progress in your career I think it is becomes even more important to

communicate your impact with data so even for like your first ux portfolio um I would encourage you to not only focus on your production but have a clear

mindset and set up the success Matrix up front here the if the problem you want to to sove is make the The onboarding Experience better for this app it is critical to set up how would you want to

measure that maybe you can either measure that by the time the total time uh user will need to complete onboarding experience or the number of key steps in

that experience so having those mindsets early on in your project can help you have a clear vision of what is the foundational problem you want to solve

and how you want to measure that also I want to encourage you to actually think about showing the impact upfront in your project most of the portfolios that I see especially from entry lva designers

the typical trend is to structure the case study in a chronological order uh from how I uh identify the problem how I approached it what steps that I took

from research to competitive analysis then to how I solved the problem and the last is typically what was the result it doesn't have to be like that imagine leading your portfolio with a strong

headline like how I increased engagement by 30% by redesigning this onboarding experience or I was able to R use the user on boarding time by 50% with a new

feature here is how I did it this approach could be very powerful as it positions you not just as a designer but also a problem solver so that is all I

have for today we talked about the strategy of how you can get started to become a ux designer by working backwards and five tips on how you can get into ux with a really strong portfolio if you have any thoughts or

comment please feele to share with me I would love to hear from you I will see you next time bye bye