Tips for Showcasing Real-World Problem Solving in UX Portfolios

What comes to your mind when an interviewer asks you to describe a "problem" you solved? For most UXers it has to do with a usability pain point. That's not a bad thing, we are expected to advocate for our users after all. But it isn't usually what an interviewer is asking or what they're looking for in a case study. (Especially if you're speaking with a product leader). Do you want your case study or interview answers to be more impactful & successful? Then shift your thinking slightly to think of "problems", "situations", "outcomes", etc as including the business impact. That's the way everyone else in a business thinks so it will resonate more with them. Now, I'm definitely not saying to forget about user pain points. It's our job to resolve them and advocate for users. But a slight shift in how you speak about it could be helpful in grabbing your interviewer's attention. For example: Instead of "the dashboard widget builder component was hard to use", try something like: "PMs and Data Analysts were spending nearly 50% of their time helping users find data and create dashboards—a task users should have been able to do themselves. This resulted in lost productivity cost of $52 Million per year. Our task was to improve our users' ability to find the data & insights they needed on their own so we could reduce product consulting time of PMs below 20%." One good test of how you're doing is to ask your PM on the project to describe the problem you were solving, and see how close it is to your description. If it's way off, there may be an opportunity for revision. A problem description should include: user pain, company pain, and scale of the problem. Ideally it should also include why this was a problem worth prioritizing as well. P.S. This way of framing problems will also make you more impactful and successful in your CURRENT role as well. #InterviewTips #PortfolioDesign #UXDesign

***UX / UXR Job Seekers*** Having trouble with case studies and portfolios? I know it can be tough to create an artifact that respects confidentiality. I dug out an extended case study I did for a conference that I later wrote up as an article. You can see that client confidentiality is protected (even though for the conference itself I had permission to share it) and there are no user names or photos. And yet, I get into quite a bit of detail. More then you'll need for a portfolio. The basic format I used (then tweaked for presentation purposes) is as follows: 1. The Problem. What the client was asking for and what they believed was wrong with the product. 2. The Work. The methods used and how we structured the project. I interwove the findings into this section as well. 3. Recommendations and Implications. What this meant to the team and what it led to. Notice that, as a consultant, I was unable to see any tangible results but I was able to follow up and get an idea of how the work was moving forward and how their viewpoint had changed. A link to the full article is in the comments.

99.9999% of case studies I see don't address: → Empathy Way too much "Next, I did this..." Not enough "Here's why we did this..." A well-placed persona image in your study is not a substitute for genuine user understanding. Some ways you can highlight empathy: → Core Needs: Begin your narrative by highlighting the user's fundamental needs. Make their pain points the core of your story, just as you did with your designs. → Insights: Distill the core needs into your primary insights. Showcase these. They guided your design decisions. Let them guide your case study. → How Might We's: A good way to frame problem-solving based on each insight. These show the uncovered potential. → Outcomes: Shift your focus from solely what you've learned to how your solution positively affected the user. How did it make their life better? Tell the story through the user's eyes, not merely as a designer ticking off a checklist. Empathy should have guided every step of your design process. Let it guide your story, too. #ProductDesign #PortfolioTips

Don’t make the UX projects in your portfolio a checklist Instead, be selective in what you share. Here’s how. Avoid this: ✔ Empathize ✔ Define ✔ Ideate ✔ Prototype  ✔ Test Instead, make your portfolio a collection of stories. Let each story share a specific skillset/experience that’s relevant to your next position. - One project may highlight how user feedback affected every design iteration. - In another project, you may emphasize your ability to plan and implement usability tests to guarantee a high customer satisfaction rating. - In a different project, you may emphasize your research skills and how you performed competitor analysis to develop a product that fills a gap in the market. Get specific. Narrow down how much you share so you can get specific enough to share the why and the how. What are other ways to make a UX portfolio stand out? #uxdesign #designportfolio #uxportfolio #jobsearch #careerjourney

Here’s a tough lesson I learned the hard way after getting rejected from a UX role: You've already lost them if they have to connect the dots for you. That was the feedback. 'Your project seemed solid, but the team couldn’t see how it connected to our business or why it mattered.' Oof. That stuck with me. It wasn’t that the work was weak. It just wasn’t framed in a way that made the value obvious. And I realized: I had made the same mistake I warned teams about in product design. I assumed they would just get it. I was so focused on walking them through my process that I didn’t stop to answer the question they actually care about: clearly 'Why should we care?' Now I think about portfolios differently. We’re not just presenting work, we’re selling how we think. We’re showing how we solve problems that matter. If we don’t take the time to connect the dots between our work and their goals, we’re asking a busy hiring manager to do it for us. And they won’t because they have 50+ other candidates hoping for the same thing. It’s like designing an app and assuming users will figure it out on their own. You can’t do that and expect great results. Now, whenever I present a project, I ask myself: Would a stranger who doesn’t know me or my work understand how this made a difference? If not, I’m not done. Have you ever had a moment like this? A rejection that actually made your portfolio (or storytelling) way better? Let’s talk. I think we all have at least one of these.