UX

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

What does your UX portfolio look like? As a UX writer, you know that this specialist industry is competitive, especially when you’re on the lookout for new clients or full-time position. One of the best ways to introduce yourself and to showcase your skills is using a UX portfolio, but you want to make sure that it’s perfect.

As Ian Fenn, the author of the captivating 2018 book, Designing a UX Portfolio: A Practical Guide for Designers, and authoritative figure in the UX industry, states:

“Employers and clients often ask prospective hires to submit a UX portfolio as evidence of their value and achievements”. He goes on to say that if not done so correctly, you risk a huge injustice to your work and your abilities.

To help you achieve this level of perfection in your portfolio, here are seven essential elements to consider in your UX portfolio that you’ll need to know.

Implement extremely nice UX

Perhaps the most obvious element of a good UX portfolio but still an essential part of your portfolio nonetheless is… good UX. Typically, you can use tools like Automattic’s WordPress or Squarespace to host your digital portfolio. I’d recommend the former, simply because you have so many opportunities to customize your site, allowing you to really show off your UX skills.

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

Define your journey

First of all, as with all business, you need it clear in your UX portfolio how you do your work and what processes you follow. This gives your potential clients or employer an idea of how you work and how you’ll fit into their business.

“You can follow three simple stages to make this easy: identify the problem, how you deal with the problem, and the result of your progress. This could be as easy as: a client needing content, you working with the client and producing the content, to the client receiving the content,” shares Sarah Parker, a writer from Essay Roo.

One of the most commonly asked questions from most job-hunting UX designers is how much detail should you include in your portfolio. As you’ll already know, the process that a UX designer goes through to get to the final product is a long and rigorous road. But, this is exactly what makes a UX designer good at what they do and is what a client or a potential recruiter is looking for.

Feel free to splurge on the details when it comes to your workflow process and emphasize your achievements, talents, and skills at each stage of the journey.

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

Protect your private content

As a UX designer, one of the biggest problems you’ll come across is protecting your ideas and your work, especially if you’re working on behind-the-scenes work for clients and you don’t want your ideas to go public.

However, when featuring this content on your blog, you can still protect it in a few ways. The most obvious method is to password protect your content. This way you can hand out the password to clients when this content relates to them.

However, a simpler way to achieve this is using the Droplr platform. Droplr enables you to easily copy and transfers any kind of content you like to another person, such as a recruiter or a potential client, instantly. For example, you can capture, clip or screenshot the content of your blog or the entire link and transfer it to your potential client.

Any content that is captured using the Droplr tool is automatically saved to your own cloud account which has a short link you can send to your client to make things really easy. You can also password protect this link to make sure nobody unauthorized has access to your content.

Create a personal brand

Not only are you selling your services as a UX designer, but you’re also selling yourself as a personal brand through your UX portfolio. One of the most effective ways to present your personal branding is by writing about yourself on your About Me page. On this page, you want to take the time to talk about who you are, what you do, what your USP is and what drives you.

Don’t be afraid to go all out in this section since this is your chance to show off your personality as a person and showcase your creative talents.

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

Use online tools

When writing your UX portfolio, it’s important to ensure you’re delivering the highest quality content that you can. To help you do this, there is a wealth of online tools and resources available to you to use;

–          State of Writing / Grammarix

These are two blogs full of writing guides you can follow when writing your writing portfolio.

–          Resume Service

This is a resume-building website with a tonne of information on creating a professional portfolio.

–          Boom Essays

An online writing agency can help and guide you through the portfolio writing process, as recommended by the HuffingtonPost in Write Essays For Me.

–          Affect vs Effect / My Writing Way

Use the information on these two blogs to help you refresh and update your grammar skills.

–          UK Writings

A professional proofreading service to help you ensure that your portfolio is perfect, as recommended by UK Top Writers.

–          Easy Word Count

A free online tool you can use to track and monitor the word count of your portfolio.

–          Elite Assignment Help / Assignment Writing Service

These two writing agencies can write your portfolio for you on your behalf.

–          Cite It In

You can use this free online tool to add citations and references to your portfolio professionally.

Write a CV/resume

As an employee or freelancer, any job you apply for, a client or recruiter is going to want to see some kind of CV or resume. Although this might seem like a dated concept, these documents are still a great way to share your work history, experience and education with people in an easy to digest format.

When writing your resume/CV, be sure to try and keep it to a page length only. This is because recruiters may be receiving dozens of applications and won’t have time to read one that’s several pages long. Due to the length of your resume, make sure that you refine your work skills and experience to only include the information that the recruiter will actually be interested in and relates to the job that you’re applying for.

This may mean writing out a new resume for every job you apply for, but this is a standard practice among job seekers anyway.

7 Elements of an Interview-Securing UX Portfolio

Get feedback on your UX portfolio

You might have spent hours slaving away on your portfolio, trying to make it perfect but it’s so easy to fall into the trap of getting lost in what you’re doing and losing your original goal. When you’re nearing to finishing your portfolio, be sure to ask friends, families and even colleagues what they think of your document. You’ll be surprised with what a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective can pick out.

Don’t forget contact information 

Quite possibly one the most important elements, you don’t want to forget to include in your online portfolio is contact information for obvious reasons. In addition to a contact page or email form, you’ll want to make sure your preferred contact details, including email address and phone number, are clearly labeled on your website so potential clients can get in touch easily and quickly.

We hope you’ve found that useful! For more tips on UX resume writing, check out Mary’s post on Forbes!

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