Early-Career Designer Portfolio Review - Spencer (Yoon-Sang Kim)

Connect with Yoon-Sang!
/ yoon-sang
uxfol.io/yoonsangkim
Some takeaways:
* Give some visual interest at the top of your portfolio. Just like we eat meals with our eyes first, we can’t help but ‘consume’ a design portfolio by considering the visuals first. Make your portfolio enticing!
* The first project on your portfolio is usually assumed to be the best, the one you’re most proud of. If that project is not complete, it’s disappointing to the viewer after they’ve made a perceived commitment to you by clicking on it.
* Dashboards are frequently reached for as a design pattern, but they often are an overwhelming mess of information for the user. If someone says “I need a dashboard” what they’re really saying is “I have too much information and I need to reduce overwhelm and make decisions quickly.” The solution MIGHT be a dashboard, but it is equally likely that it’s not. It depends…
* Refine the language of your case study to speak plainly and communicate efficiently. Too many fancy words makes it feel like you’re hiding behind the words because your work can’t stand up to scrutiny. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case here, but the marketing language is helpful for the initial introduction, not the ‘here’s what I did and what I learned from it’ parts of the case study. (This is specifically about personas)
* Are your research conclusions actual conclusions? Or are they constraints, requirements and pain points?
* The How Might We questions felt way too broad and not helpful for YOU as the designer to make good design decisions that help the users solve a specific problem.
* Outcomes over output: don’t just show your work, describe to the hiring manager WHY you did the task and what doing the task enabled you to do next.
Get your portfolio reviewed - free! bit.ly/UX-PortfolioReview
Hey Team! Today we have another in the series of Early Career Designer Portfolio Reviews, where I conduct a kind of UI assessment called a Cognitive Walkthrough. I review an early career designers portfolio and resume and give feedback for ways to improve it as they look for a job in the UX industry.
I'm a Sr. UX Designer with 9+ years of experience in UX design and a passion for helping early career designers as they make a career shift into tech. You can find out more about me at maigenthomas.com
Also, you can find out about me at www.patreon.com/maigenux where I hope you'll join an awesome crew of folks as I provide motivation and mentorship, build an apprenticeship agency to employ early-career designers and teach UX as I do UX.
If you're up for a portfolio review, you can sign up at this link: bit.ly/UX-PortfolioReview You don't have to agree to allow me to post it on the channel but it's appreciated if you're willing.
Thanks for joining me!

[@melissagerson21]

Dashboard designer here! There’s a lot to include in your case study that can show your skills:
1). Break it down by widgets (why did you include certain infographics and what is the data it is showing) and did it accurately show the results? What is the challenge/feedback/problem and how is the graph a solution?
2. Is this a SaaS device? Curious to see how it connects with the data?
3. If you are a UI designer, how did you decide on the infographics? Are the components based on a grid size? Are they responsive?

[@maigen]

These are FANTASTIC questions!