How to design your UI/UX case study | Portfolio tips + detailed walkthrough

hello and welcome to another video today in this video i'm going to share with you some concrete examples on how you can start your own case study if you don't know where to start so let's start from the beginning what is a case study and what is it for your case study will help recruiters and companies understand the way you work understand your design process your thought process to gauge your skill set and to understand how your designs have translated into real impact so i'll structure this case study into three parts one common questions that you may have second common beginner mistakes and thirdly walking you through my case study and my thought process so one of the common questions what case study format or platform should i go with you have many choices for example behind notion your own website you know on squarespace i think it's entirely up to you on what platform or format you would like to go with but keep one thing in mind your case studies should be easily shareable with recruiters through a link and also think about the experience that the recruiter goes through when they are reading your case study so for example if you know you send them a pdf that is static then how would the recruiter interact with your prototype do you want them to click on the link and link out of the pdf to another link or is it better if you place everything in one place for example a website where they can just straight away glance through your portfolio easily so think about the user experience you are a product designer user experience is one of the most important things that you should focus on keep in mind that you know you shouldn't spend too much time on thinking what to pick go with a format that you are most comfortable with for now focus on one first and once you get that ready you'll actually have an idea of what platform or format that suits yourself the most so secondly how many case studies do i need to show if you are someone who has already worked on several projects showcase your best three projects tailored to the job that you're applying for but for example if you're a junior you don't have any projects to start with i would recommend you to just make two case studies focus on making those two really really really good showcase your thought process in that case study for example if you don't have any real world projects to show right now it's okay you could just start with a mock project from design challenges which i will share a link above here where i actually walk you through some tips that you can get started tackle a design challenge on your own so that you have some projects to show potential companies always prioritize the one that is most relevant to your job role first and remember pick two or three of your most products projects because it's always better to show two or three best projects rather than 10 mediocre projects another common question that i get asked is how long should my case study be there is no hard rule to this as long as you keep your case study with the most important information that a recruiter should know when working with you then i think it should be good enough always have the problem the goal the impact the solution and also the design process the thought process where you went through the ideation you know the research iteration and also show them a prototype i'll walk you through these later in the video so don't go away yet next up i'm gonna share with you some common beginner mistakes that i have found while i'm looking at junior designers case studies one of the common mistakes that i found is a junior designer only shows the end designs this is not a strong case study because you're only focusing on the end designs while anyone can make pretty designs how did you approach that design you know what made you choose this component over the other what made you design your patterns in this particular way why do you choose this color this font type how did you come up with the flows did you validate people first or assume by yourself another beginner mistake that i find is when you apply for a role you did not tailor your case study according to the role that you're applying for for example if you're applying for a role in healthcare but your case study is about games so how could a recruiter relate to your case study if you are showing something totally irrelevant to them try to always tailor your case study to the role that you're applying for if the role that you're applying for lies heavily in research always show more research content in your case study and if the pro you're applying for is for example more heavy or interaction design you include more interaction in your case study go through in detail of why each interaction is designed this way so that it appeals to the recruiter more and they could gauge your skill set based on your case study while you tailor your case study to the role that you're trying to apply for it has already helped you stand out a lot more from all the applicants in the pool another beginner mistake that i find is you start off your case study with everything but you did not mention the problem that you're trying to solve at all you do not start a project without trying to figure out what problem you're trying to solve it has to start with a problem for example you're trying to improve the customer experience because people keep dropping off from the app there could be more than one problem statements but try to address that in your designs in the solution part later so never forget the problem statement another common beginner mistake is you do not spell check your case study you do not align things properly in the case study the typography is wrong it's all over the place images are blurry do not do that always spell check your case study always pay attention to the details when you're preparing your case study if i am interviewing someone and i see a case study having plenty of spelling mistakes icons that are not aligned photos they are not placed properly and content that doesn't make sense then how could i trust you for the role that you're applying for so let's dive into my process of creating a case study when i start a new project right i will usually have it documented somewhere try to make it a habit to document all your design but in my case i use notion i have set up properties in notion where i have a tagline company platforms you know my role anything here anything that's related to this project and it's entirely up to you on how you like to set it up but this is just an inspiration for you the purpose of this is just to document things fast you want some way for you to just note down things quickly you could even use apple notes if that's what you prefer right you don't need to use anything complicated so this is where i store all my photos and visualization so for example if i need to visualize this data here i will do it in figma and you know any notes that i have i'll be putting it here so once i'm done with that i'll just export them and paste it on webflow straight away so recently if you have been following my twitter i've moved all my case study from notion to workflow i feel like i want to tailor the experience of people visiting my site and reading my case studies and webflow enables me to do this quickly and easily i managed to migrate everything in like three days pretty fast considering that i'm also adding new content to my site this is how my site looks like when users arrive on the page the users are able to skip to the section that they find relevant or they are interested to find out more recruiting managers are going to look at what's your role in a project what is the problem that you're trying to solve and usually they will just skip to the impact try and create a captivating photo for your case study you could make it into a gif and it's up to you right up to creativity this is what attracts recruiters in clicking into your case study and find out more about your project in your case study always remember to include a meaningful title instead of just saying faith landing page redesign what problem did you solve or the impact that you have achieved with your project so think of a title that is meaningful and effective next up always include an overview of your project i have included the timeline so that people know how long have i been working on this project and platform you know what platform is this on is it an app in my case this is a responsive website include your role in the project whether you're a designer if you're a researcher developer and something that's optional is also you could include the tools that you have used uh the design to the research to customers leave it to whatever that you have included as well another thing you can include is your industry for example fintech industry healthcare industry you know gaming so when you're preparing a case study always include the introduction an introduction to the company the product so that people have enough context on what you're designing for right include your role as well in detail i've also included you know the people that have collaborated with so this gives recruiters an example an idea of who you could potentially work with they could gauge whether you have worked with people in the past or you are used to working in silo as i mentioned just now in one of the common beginner mistakes a lot of people did not include their problem statement in the case study always include a problem here if there's more than one problem state that as well make sure that the design solution that you've included in the end solves these problems mentioned here so after the problem share your goals of this project i have stated four goals that i'm trying to achieve with this redesign each goal i'll elaborate them separately feel free to make this into a more visually appealing matter it doesn't have to be all text only think of ways to make the storytelling more interesting for your case study how you tell a story also says a lot about your capabilities as a designer this is the most interesting part of the case study which is the impact so if this project has already launched include the metrics always remember that show off this metrics in an attractive manner right so here i have done some data visualization as well so that people don't have to think about what data are you trying to convey they can just look at the data look at the image and they know immediately what this data is about so it actually cuts down some reading time for people and it's easier to scan and also if your project hasn't started yet well it's fine you can just put the impact as you know it's coming soon or it will be launched at a set date for example this is a mock project and you do not have any real impact that you could showcase in your case study what do you do for example you could share your designs in a prototype manner to like say 10 or 20 people and measure how these people have decreased their checkout time because of your redesign find a way to measure your impact if possible but if you don't have any it's fine as well it's it's not a must to have this here especially when you're starting out right now this is the time where you share your design process i start off the design process by sharing you know the early ideations that we had if you have established any design principles in your process feel free to share them here as well and of course any sketches it doesn't have to be pretty they are meant to look messy they are meant to look raw and unpolished include your wireframes high fidelity designs user flows research journey mapping all that in this section i've shared how the user testing has been done and also how do we consolidate the test results always share the findings at the end of the test it's always nice to include a before and after in your project because it helps people understand what was the transformation that your design has went through in each final design don't just show a photo and you know don't describe your designs so in your design solutions always include why is the user experience designed this way if this project is already live you could ask them to check out the live site by just clicking on a button if it's in a prototype stage link them to a prototype so that recruiters can see how your product works this could be a chance for you to also showcase your prototyping skills if you are new and also make sure when you are linking your prototype to the case study check if the links are correct do not link any broken links so that recruiters don't find any mistakes in your prototype if you have contributed in other ways as well that is not necessarily related to just product design you could also include them at the end of the case study and also future steps so this section could be a section for you to share your takeaways your learnings reflections right and also any future plans that you have for the product if you feel like you could have done more user testing you can share them inside here as well and i leave it to you to inject your own personality into your case study remember this case study is going to represent you don't do what everyone else is doing although include the necessary information say your problem your goal your impact your design process right always include your research process your testing so that people know that you did not design without validation and always include the future plans or your takeaways i will include a link to my case study down below so keep in mind that these are just recommendations on how you could craft your case study to appeal to the job that you're applying for it's also a really good way to document your design process and see how much you've grown in years to come always make it a habit to document your design process it would be a nice memory and also it would serve useful in the future see you in the next video thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Rachel How

Views: 27,662

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Id: JhlCgYAoTec

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021