Curating a Compelling Portfolio Narrative

🔥 During design interviews, presenting your case study can feel like a make-or-break moment. However, many designers can benefit from strengthening one essential skill: clearly communicating the impact of their work. In my latest video, I worked with Joshua McKenzie, a Senior Product Designer, to critique his case study presentation and help him elevate it to interview-ready status. The goal? Craft a compelling story that showcases his skills, approach, and outcomes 🏆. In this critique, we cover: - How to structure your case study for clarity and engagement. - The importance of pairing visuals with a strong narrative. - Why you need two versions of your case study: one to send, one to present. - How to effectively integrate data and metrics into your story. - Common presentation pitfalls (and how to avoid them). 👀 Watch the full critique and take your portfolio to the next level: https://lnkd.in/gcjxD7VJ Some key takeaways: - Structure matters: Start with a clear business problem and user challenge, then walk through your process step by step, ending with measurable outcomes. - Visuals over words: Avoid text-heavy slides—let your work speak for itself while you guide the story. - Tailor for the audience: Use a concise, visual version of your case study for live presentations and a more detailed, written version if sending out. - Leverage data: Metrics and insights show your impact and differentiate your thinking and work from others. - Practice storytelling: Your ability to communicate your work is just as important as the work itself. ✨ If you're preparing for design interviews or looking to refine your case study game, this video is packed with actionable advice to help you stand out! 💥

Creating a portfolio is hard. Showing your uniqueness is even harder. Hear me out. Imagine this: You've spent countless hours perfecting your portfolio, selecting your best projects, and polishing every pixel. Yet, when hiring managers review it, your application blends in with dozens of others. Your unique personality, problem-solving skills, and work ethic remain hidden behind a wall of sleek designs and brief descriptions. As a result, you miss out on opportunities where you could have been the perfect fit, because your portfolio fails to tell your whole story. That was my situation back when I worked on my first portfolio, too. It doesn't have to be that way. Here's how you can transform your portfolio into a powerful narrative that showcases your true value: 1. Use case studies, not just galleries 2. Craft your case studies like engaging stories 3. Write authentically, as if you're speaking to the reader 4. Highlight your design process, not just the end results 5. Include success metrics to demonstrate impact 6. Be honest about struggles and how you overcame them 7. Showcase side projects that reflect your passions 8. Feature testimonials and references to build credibility By implementing these strategies, you'll create a portfolio that goes beyond surface-level aesthetics. You'll give hiring managers and potential colleagues a chance to understand your thought process, problem-solving skills, and unique approach to design. Remember, most designers are hired by other designers. By sharing your true story, you allow them to relate to your journey, struggles, and successes. This personal connection can make all the difference in landing your dream job or project. P.S. Always maintain professional relationships! You never know when a past connection might lead to a future opportunity. P.P.S. If you found this tip helpful, don't forget to share it with others in the design community!

Not getting another interview after your portfolio presentation? Maybe this is why 👇 I've sat in many portfolio presentations. I also work with numerous mentees, helping shape their stories. The biggest mistake I always see is not showcasing the why behind your work. Context. So many presentations go like this: - Hi, it me 👋 - Here's my first case - Here is a persona I made - Here is another persona I made - Here is an arbitrary user flow - Here is a sketch I made - Here is a wireframe I made - Here is the final solution - I learned a couple of things Your presentation should be a story, not a simple show and tell. Don't just tell your audience WHAT you did. Tell them WHY you did it. The why connects your thought process to your design. We want to hear what drove your decisions. Paint a vivid picture of the challenges you faced, the insights you stumbled upon, and the brainstorms that led to breakthroughs. What separates you from other designers is how you think and your design decisions. ✅ Frame your failures ✅ Dissect your decisions ✅ Incorporate your successes ✅ Create a beginning, middle, and end ✅ Show the path from initial idea to final Each slide and each statement should reveal a bit more about your thinking process. Details matter. Subtleties matter. They all add up to a powerful narrative. When your presentation is infused with purpose and passion, your work shines. It demonstrates your technical skills and your capacity for critical thinking, problem-solving, and empathetic understanding. And that's what sets you apart. Not just the sheer quality of your work but also the depth of thought put into it. Make them remember what you did and why you did it. Because, in the end, it's the why that truly matters. ------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow: Mollie Cox ♻ Repost to help others 💾 Save it for future use

After reviewing thousands of design portfolios over the years, I’ve noticed a critical mistake that 90% of designers make: they don’t demonstrate the impact of their work. It’s not enough to showcase polished visuals or detail your design process. What truly sets a portfolio apart is highlighting the difference your work made. And remember, impact isn’t always about boosting revenue or hitting business KPIs. It comes in many forms: • A Success Story from a Single User: Maybe your redesign of an app feature helped a user complete tasks twice as fast, reducing their frustration and improving their experience. Sharing that story shows empathy and real-world impact. • Influencing Strategic Decisions: Perhaps you presented user research that convinced stakeholders to pivot the product strategy, leading to a more user-centric approach. That’s impact at a strategic level. • Enhancing Team Dynamics: Did you introduce a new collaboration tool or workflow that made your team more efficient and cohesive? Improving the way your team works is a significant contribution. Tips to Showcase Impact in Your Portfolio: 1. Tell the Story Behind Your Work: Go beyond the final design. Explain the problem, your approach to solving it, and the resulting positive change. 2. Include Testimonials or Feedback: If possible, add quotes from users, team members, or stakeholders who benefited from your work. 3. Highlight Diverse Impacts: Show a range of impacts—user satisfaction, team improvements, strategic influence—not just business metrics. 4. Use Before-and-After Comparisons: Visuals or data that illustrate the difference your design made can be very compelling. By clearly demonstrating your work's impact, you show what you did and why it mattered. This makes your portfolio memorable and sets you apart from many others that focus solely on aesthetics. Remember, your designs can make a difference—in people’s lives, your team, and your organization. Make sure your portfolio tells that story. Have you highlighted the impact of your work in your portfolio? I’d love to hear how you’ve showcased it!

Want to supercharge your portfolio? Show your role, not just the result. I review a lot of portfolios. The pattern is familiar: gorgeous final images, little context. Five minutes in, I’m still asking the only question that matters in a team environment—what did you actually do? Leaders and teams don’t hire galleries; they hire pros who can demonstrate how to move real projects forward inside real constraints. Show the story of your contribution. For 2–3 flagship projects, narrate the arc—not with a novel, but with clarity: Context: What was the assignment? Who was it for? What problem were you solving? Contribution: Your role and the three responsibilities you owned. Choices: The decisions and trade-offs that shaped the work—and why you chose them. Collaboration: Where you listened, aligned disciplines, unblocked an issue, or elevated someone else’s idea. Outcome: What changed—guest impact, a measurable result, or a before/after insight. Credits: Name the team. Share the win. When you lead with context + contribution and then show the hero image, reviewers can see how you think and collaborate. That’s where trust is built: not just in the polish of the render, but in the way you reasoned through the brief, partnered across disciplines, and made the work better together. And if you're the one creating the amazing image, showcase how you co-created it with the client and communicated with the team. Tell the story of the teammate you are—and your portfolio will help open the right doors.

We all know we're supposed to "show instead of tell." But most design portfolios fail to do this and here's why. 👇 Designers love showcasing their raw work in their portfolios including outputs or deliverables such as: → Sketches → Diagrams → User flows → Wireframes → Sticky notes → Journey maps But to be honest, 90% of the time, I have absolutely no idea what is going on in those images. For example, I'll often come across a screenshot or picture of 25+ sticky notes, but: → They are too zoomed out. → If I zoom in, they're too blurry. → Even if I can seem them, they're too overwhelming. Then I start asking myself questions such as: → Am I supposed to read every sticky note? → What's important about these sticky notes? → Is this worth my time and attention to decipher? This is where storytelling comes in. What if instead of showing a raw zoomed out screenshot of sticky notes, we instead pulled out the key highlights and takeaways? Then we can guide the reader's attention to what's actually important, and optionally include a link to the original raw image afterwards. This creates a far more compelling narrative for our audience (hiring managers and recruiters), and ensures we're showing the right level of detail that is necessary to understand the story. Now to be clear, I'm not saying you should entirely avoid raw images or assets (or even raw Figma files). For example, these can be effective during the interview process because the designer can use their voice to guide their audience through the image. But when it's an online written case study submitted with an application, then you won't be in the room when a hiring manager first sees it. In that moment, your story will need to stand on it's own. It will need to communicate the right level of clarity and detail to compel the hiring manager to offer you an interview. In summary, when we want to "show instead of tell", that doesn't mean slapping a raw screenshot or image in our portfolio. It means reflecting on how we're using our words and images to give context, clarity, and tell an impactful story. Use it effectively to your advantage. What are your thoughts? #ux #design #portfolio #casestudy #storytelling

After many, I mean many, iterations of my portfolio I started to notice the importance of making them flow like a narrative, rather than a checklist. Even more so, I realized that my case studies should not just be the play by play of the all the steps I took to complete the project. Instead, that there were two stories at play. One was that of the play by play. Think me retelling everything I did and what went on to complete the project. The other, is that of the case study. The difference? The case study one should only share out the vital pieces that will help your reader to understand your process and how you think. So you are probably asking, how do I figure that one out? Well, I can help you with that! That is why I created my UX Portfolio Sandwich Model. It’s a list of steps with questions that help you figure out this difference. It’s important for 3 reasons 1️⃣ It helps you find the important deliverables to add 2️⃣ Creates a case study that is shorter in length so helps your Hiring Managers who have no time see more 3️⃣ Allows for more transitions between steps to create a more engaging narrative

Career Archaeology: Uncovering Your True Professional DNA Senior executives and emerging leaders referred to me for career coaching have no shortage of wins, deliverables and achievements. In fact they often had long, winding stories of impact. Yet rarely did their expertise translate seamlessly into a compelling leadership narrative. Others only grasped fragments without continuity, failing to convey their true talent. My mission became a methodical examination of their professional DNA to craft authentic framing of their next chapters. Our “archaeological digs” into uncovering motivations and patterns revealing their innate drivers looked similar across these leaders: 📈   Plotting their careers’ timeline highs and lows to identify peaks revealing values, skills, and environments energizing them 🪫 Categorizing and auditing current responsibilities showing activities draining energy rather than fueling them 🧭 Codifying personal drivers around teams, pace, and location preferences, clarifying right fits 🔂 Extracting common themes across seemingly disparate positions illustrating their leadership superpowers transferrable regardless of company or industry These reflective exercises formed the bedrock I used to distill precise, compelling narratives, authentically capturing their leadership essence and distinct value. With clarity of past impact deconstructed to its core DNA components, we could sequence modular accomplishments into a career narrative uniquely their own. Now they can authoritatively articulate focused direction aligned to personal truths - not allowing extraordinary journeys already taken to constrain, but rather propel new trails blazed ahead. #careercoach #professionaldevelopment #narrative