UX Portfolio Review: First Case Study (Junior UX Designer)
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- In this latest instalment of UX portfolio reviews, I'll walk through the latest viewer submission which covers the very first UX case study that designer has done. While it's an impressive first stab at documenting and presenting the design work as usual there are a lot of improvement areas. Some of the bits I cover include the difference between design thinking and UX process, the necessity of deep UX research when designing user experience and other suggestions.
Sometime back I asked my viewers if there's anyone who would like to get their UX portfolios reviewed and shared with the broader audience. While it must be daunting to put it out there, constructive feedback and specific pointers can make all the difference. Would you like your UX design portfolio to be reviewed with constructive pointers? Drop me a line below or hello@vaexperience.com. Please be explicit that you are ok with me sharing it in a video.
I recently also created a playlist that contains all my videos on UX portfolios here: • UX Portfolios, design ...
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Feeling very inspired and very depressed simultaneously
I know, especially as someone who has only very recently started looking into UX and never made a case study. I feel like it's easier to measure? How good the UI of an app is, but the rest isn't very easy to quantify.
I hear ya, this looks like an amazing case study and yet this dude is pulling it apart like a pork sandwich. Ugh...
There is no such thing as a perfect case study because everyone has a different opinion. Let’s be honest, the person who made this case study put in an huge amount of work. It’s for a junior ux position. In the U.K. thats like 20-25 grand. Critiquing to this level for an opening position is just not needed. It’s only a concept project? No one can be a master of everything. He has more than enough potential in both ux and UI.
@@lucygilbertson3746 I was depressed from this video but your comment motivated me 😊
One of the reasons why this field is difficult to get into is because each reviewer has something different they are looking for.
Exactly
I liked what you said: " I would bet people don't need new apps, we need better ways to do things"!
Yes really useful takeway!
UPDATE: Landed a job as a UX/Product Designer in a London based tech startup
Hey! I’m Adam. Thanks for reviewing my case study. Some brilliant feedback to work with here. Bit of background on me, I come from a sales background working for a tech startup. Lost my job due to COVID and also have a baby on the way. I decided to make a career change as I always loved the idea of getting into ux/product design as I worked closely with the product team. I taught myself how to use sketch. I used my redundancy money to take Career Foundry’s UX immersion course which I started in July - this is where the project comes from. That’s also why the time frame was so long. The project brief was to create an app, so unfortunately could not improve upon an existing one. Just finished my second case study and about to start applying for jobs in product and Ux. Wish me luck!
Great progress and impressive take on the very first case study - good luck 👍
Congratulations AJ on your job.
can i have a look on your portfolio?
Thanks for making these videos! I really learnt a lot and these are tips that would certainly help in my UX portfolio! Please keep going!
I just watch your videos, I love the way you explain things, i can comprehend well
wow, thats exactly what i am looking for, thanks a lot for being on youtube
This is gold, I love your perspective of UX.
Thank you for the job you do! It is so kind from you!
took so many notes from this, thank you! this is such good advice for junior designers
Awesome! One more junior product designer portfolio coming up. Stay tuned
Thank you so much for making this review. I've learnt a lot of insightful tips!
Thank you a lot. I was craving for this kind of content.
Thanks a lot! Great questions 🔥🔥🔥 I'm looking at my portfolio and make these questions to my cases as well 👍
Hi, I'am a newbie in UI/UX design field and these days while keep learning the essentials of the process, i'm working on my first case study. So watching this video has helped me in perspective a lot before finishing my case study. So thank you! I've just discovered vaexperience and I'm gonna continue to watch your contents
Very insightful - this is very motivating; I am going to push to get my first finished over the next few weeks so that I can submit it
Wonderful!
Please do a future review for a junior UX that has a good to excellent portfolio :). One that almost checks all the boxes.
Thank you.
Hey, if you have one - feel free to submit it. The portfolios reviewed here are by the viewers
very informative vedio. i just completed my course and starting to do case study..your vedio helps me alot. hope, will get more of reviewing vedios
very informative! Thank you! I'm in a boot camp now and you explain things so much clearer!
Glad it was helpful!
Where did you do boot camp? Good luck w/ everything!
I just started a UX/UI Bootcamp 5 days ago and this is sooo helpful!! thanks!
Take some of this advice with a grain of salt. Every hiring manager is looking for very different things. For a junior position, this case study is more than enough and is impressive. Of course there could be improvements but Its subjective. Hiring managers grilling people for absolute perfection for an opening position are not the type of people you want to work for! Passion, hard work and motivation are what they should be looking for.
I'm a UI Designer trying hard to be better at UX. One of my frustration is the client or sometimes even your own team not participating in research activities.
Your feedback is very insightful! Thank you for the great video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I recently interviewed at a car company for UX position and one of the interviewers was a relatively new hire, And my problem statement focused on the business need and they felt that my portfolio was too business oriented and not user-oriented. Thank you for validating the work I've done. I tried to reiterate what I'd already said three or four times so that they could follow along.
I had similar experience in the past when the hiring team was peers/more junior than myself. And I got rejected because was focusing on strategy, outcomes etc. In retrospect its a good riddance because it would have meant reporting to incompetent person if I'd to succeed
You are a lightning tower for sailors in the ocean. Thank you !!
Awesome review!!
I really need this... thanks 😭
Very helpful! thank you~
Awesome tips here
I love your videos but I'm terrified to share my first case study with you :) I just created my portfolio website and added the first case study I worked on
Thanks for your amazing videos.
I liked where you talked about thinking broader and validating the Service, not on the features...
Do you have any video on this topic?
Glad it was helpful! Almost every video on UX covers the holistic and more strategic side to things - stay tuned
Have you got a video on the ux process (or are there any good articles to read)? I've seen so many different representations of the process that it's really confusing keeping track of which is which
Hey. Love your videos, are you able to do a case study tutorial for junior designers trying to get their first role. Structure, required info and format? Step by step of what you'd like to see as a baseline. Also how to work via Agile and working to design sprints
Hey, the mistake juniors make is that they try to find a template to fit their project on. You should focus on UX work for any given project first - then the template of case study will happen regardless. There is not a cookie cutter approach which you should follow, and also it would be impossible for me to give step by step tutorial on so - your project, challenges, activities will vary and so will your case study structure. As for most essential elements - all are covered in the portfolio reviews on the playlist. Watch a few and it should be clear where the overlaps are and what you should have in your portfolio. The key here is to not make a mistake and do UX backwards trying to fit a template.
@@vaexperience oh ok ok thank you so much. That was helpful, searching online makes it appear as if there are set ways to conduct a case study because I’ve seen varied design thinking templates and it gets confusing.
I would be interested to know if you still give chances to junior designers that have flaws in their process. For example, after reading the portfolio presented in this video, would you interview the designer and take him through the recruitment process?
I am about to finish my first UX portfolio website and would definitely send it to you.
This is a good question. Let me have a think and maybe answer in a video
I love your analysis. It's not my case study but I've learnt a lot from this. You made a point about design thinking not necessarily being a UX methodology and I've noticed that it's usually mentioned in entrepreneurial studies too. But, can you please tell me what methodologies are there strictly for UX?
I honestly think the process only needs to get you to the best possible solution so it’s not a recipe to stick to every time. It is good for the first few times but as time goes by you realize that for some problems some methodologies work while for some other problems the won’t work so well - so in my case studies I don’t follow strictly a certain process it adapts to the type and topic of project. That said I always have at least three phases:
1. Problem Discovery: Is it really a Problem worth solving?
2. Tied to this also (unfortunately not every time - but that’s because I am so time restricted) user research (be it Surveys or interviews, or user testing)
3. Brainstorming of some sort to address the found problems (and after that obviously creating a first solution)
4. Usability Testing (mostly the solution is not working on the first time)
A good and simple methodology to keep in mind is the lean startup process: for every step you build you should measure/test if it’s the right direction and then learn from it to create the next iteration (so fairly simple: Build Measure Learn)
Very helpful! You said design thinking is not really a UX process, what do you suggest to take instead? And smt else, how should i approach the 5 elements of design in my work. Thanks alot
Thanks for your amazing feeback. Could you tell me what is the best portfolio you like and love?
Thanks for this! I'm in the early days of my UX/UI journey and being able to make notes on how best to structure case studies and what you look for is invaluable. I feel that so much in what I've seen is purely for aesthetics, completely irrelevent, shows no visual storytelling and does not make sense, especially on Behance and Dribbble. Just aesthetic garbage as if it's an Instagram post of a girl on a beach.
Great video. The thing is, if he were to do enough research to actually develop an app the users need, he may as well develop the app himself!
What is the software you use for brainstorming? the one that has all the sticky notes and graphs.
is that really the junior level of a UX designer ? that's insane.
Lots of good takeaways!
I have one question regarding hypothesis. Do you always approach a process with a stated hypothesis? For instance, let's say I'm faced with a problem..could be that conversion has decreased..do I have to form a hypothesis, or can it be sufficient to just general questions that I'll bring with me into the research phase?
Hey, your questions should come from the hypotheses. Even if you don't formalise it your mind and actions as a researcher will come from underlying hypotheses. Putting them on paper or sharing with others within the team can correct course as isolation based planning can lead to costly assumptions
Hi, Thanks for your helpful video, how can I download this portfolio
Thank you for this video
Please can I share my portfolio to review it ?
I just felt I didn’t do the right content or Ux research for it because I do get a lot of bad feedback from it
What is that stuff called? how do you make one (eg. process, steps), and what tools do you use for that project showcase thingy, cant find the right word to search, i need something so i can start working with that kind of presentation, Im a self taught programmer.
Can you share this case study link please? I am a Junior UX Designer as well. I need the case study.
I actually talk about UX and design thinking/agile in a way that's slightly semantic but it does make a difference. I don't see your ex is fitting into design thinking and agile. Instead I see agile and design thinking fitting into UX. Let the developers have agile, it's very specific to them.
Quality
Any videos about the best case study you've seen?
Is there a source where to read on design thinking? I am confused . What's the difference between UX and Design thinking. Maybe produce a dedicated video? Thanks ✌️
There is a dedicated video on design thinking. Design thinking is IDEOs innovation workshops that starts with empathy and uses some UX methods here and there. UX is UX.
Hi vy, what did you mean when you said design thinking is not really ux?
What's the actual UX process?
Since he said its different from Design Thinking.
I'm not sure if that green in the UI part offers enough readability, to be honest.
WHERE DO YOU SHOW CASE YOUR PORTFOLIO ?
hey, hi first of all thanks for your valuable content. I have learned a lot about ux. so one thing I want to ask that, is it necessary for visual designers to put ux case studies in there portfolio too. like if someone who is from graphic design background and wants to switch to ui design only?
Not neccessary, but might help for hybrid positions depending on the marker you're applying in
@@vaexperience thank you ill definitely consider it. :)
How can I send you my case study to review?
Hello, I am a beginner in UX/UI design. I personally don't want to become a complete UX designer. I haven't been able to find any tutorials or explanations for creating case studies for UI design projects. I don't know if I have to do all these sections for promoting my UI design alone. I prefer designing over the research and the entire process involved in UX. Can anyone help me out in understanding what sections and points a UI designer needs to apply for their first case study or whether is such a thing as a UI design case study? I'm not sure how to progress since I don't have any surveys, or interviews performed.
same thing happens to me :(
What is the difference between a simple UX process and Design Thinking process? Cheers!
Hey, check one of the videos on the channel for ux vs design thinking
ohh thank you finally decent accent
I bet vaexperience wants 5 years ux design experience for potential candidates lol for junior designers
Seniors, yes.
hi everyone.. i have a MacBook pro mid 2014.. is this sufficient to use to run programs like sketch, adobe xd, and use tools for UX? I am going back to school to study ux. thanks!
Hi there! As a Ux student myself, I believe that you will probably be fine with your current setup, at least for now. Many of the tools you will recurrently use are either quite light or web based (like Figma itself and the google docs suite). If you feel like your machine needs a little boost in performance, a cheap way could be by getting an ssd and upgrading the ram in it (if it’s not been done yet)
I would upgrade to the M1 Macbook Air (with 16 gb ram, do not buy the 8 gb ram version).
MUCH more performance, super good screen for designing, super efficient.
Down side - 2 ports (USB C).
What's the reason for all of that if the final design is a disaster? How on earth a designer could come up with a decision to put an illustration which occupies around 20% of the screen space in a simple calendar?
visual design or UX design? - two different things; UX designers should first and foremost care about user research, everything else is an addon
So my question is ux has to be after ui design or i can jump to ux as I am a graphic designer !
Hey, do you mean as a career progression? You could just start with UX and focus on user research, or go the other way and focus on UI and then transition to UX. Regardless if UX is your goals then you need to focus on user research, strategy, facilitation among many other skills that aren't UI related
• I would grill you... a lot “
😂😂😂
Totally agreed
Personas with fancy sliders, ranges and other relative bits is a big one for me. Can't remember interviewing a candidate who could explain why they did it or how they would use that - it's a nice looking, but very risky way to present it
@@vaexperience great tips! Unfortunately here in Los Angeles, where the ux market isn’t very mature, recruiters love combo designers (ux/ui) and showing ui skills might help get to the next interview phase. Now, if someone is applying for a more design mature company, like Netflix, or Yelp, I can see that showing “pretty graphics” with not much substance might annoy whoever is receiving the portfolios.
Hey Vaexperience, I agree with you that it is highly questionable that an additional app is required to enhance the user experience. But that is so in conflict with someone who has no real world experience and just doing conceptual designs. If I am a noob and doing a conceptual design, I understand that there are already highly mature products in the market but what the hell am I supposed to do? Write in my case study that THERE ARE ALREADY MATURE AND SUCCESSFUL COMPETITORS IN THE MARKET AND ALL I AM DOING WITH THIS CASE STUDY IS JUST WASTING EVERYBODY'S TIME? Please give me an alternative to what the hell I am supposed to write in my case study, otherwise your comment is just quite useless tbh. It is just the same as saying everyone is going to die in 1 trillion year so why bother with bringing another human being into the world since there are already 7 billion of them.
That escalated quick. How might you provide users with good ux without an app, or it even being a digital product? if you can't come up with alternative great ideas that aren't bound to one channel when it comes to if then it's not ux. What I advice noobs to do is to not start with an app as a go to thing to do which they retrofit and try to match with user needs - that's a backwards approach. Research 》define 》 ideate (only here do you figure out if its an app, no app, automated service, printouts, website, in person experience, etc etc - ux isn't app design.
Thanks for confirming UX is not for me! But can you just be UI? Every job says UX/UI!! Or just UX, but they mean UI or vice versa. There is no standard...
Yes and yes. UI/UX typically mean UI anyways, just with some aptitude for UX.
The intro makes me wanna quit UX 😂
design thinking is a ux process !!!!!!!!!!!!!
it's in the name - design thinking is design thinking. Organisations make a mistake to employ consultancy like design thinking without proper UX methods. The UX process and methods are the doing part, so no design thinking isn't UX.
@@vaexperience czcams.com/video/85NfqxniGxw/video.html pointing to this second and the comment, I understand your point, but then what is the proper UX method? just for my information, please.
Wahala