Building a Successful UX/UI Portfolio

October 4, 2024

Your portfolio - it's your opportunity to show your design skills, how you think, and how you solve problems. In this competitive market, it could just be what lands you a better job or a new career altogether…no pressure right?

We know building a portfolio is a major task and can seem a little scary, particularly for beginners, so we created this guide to help get you started!

If you’d like more hands-on help with your portfolio, consider enrolling in a UX online course! Portfolio building is included in all of Avocademy's programs so you can tackle this important milestone with the support of a design mentor.

Understanding the Importance of a UX/UI Portfolio

A UX/UI portfolio is a collection of your best work that shows who you are as a designer.

It goes beyond just listing your skills and experience like a resume. A portfolio lets you ditch the "tell" and show the world your design skills and process through real examples of your work.

Here's why portfolios are so important in the design world, your portfolio will help you:

Demonstrate your skills: Show what you’re capable of by adding examples of what you’ve designed thus far.
Share your process: Give viewers a glimpse into your thought process and how you approach your work.
Show your impact: Great UX/UI design solves problems, communicate how you fixed/improved/created an amazing product.
Make a good first impression: Your portfolio is often the first thing a recruiter or hiring manager sees. A strong portfolio can grab their attention and make you stand out from the crowd.

To build a portfolio, you first need to learn the design skills needed to do the work and then apply them to portfolio-worthy projects. There are a number of ways you could do this, including online UX courses and more! We cover options later in this guide.

How to Create the Best UX/UI Portfolio

Essential Elements of a UX/UI Portfolio

Overview of Key Components

What should you include in your portfolio? There are a few key components that make up every great UX/UI portfolio:

Contact Information: Make it easy for potential employers to reach you! Include your email address, phone number, or links to relevant professional profiles like LinkedIn.
Bio (About Me): Your bio is your chance to introduce yourself to your future boss, coworkers, clients, etc.. What do you want them to know about you and your journey?
Case Studies or Project Samples: This is the heart of your portfolio. Showcase 3-4 strong projects using a case study format. More on this in a bit.
Skills and Tools Used: List your key UX/UI design skills like user research, prototyping, and UI design. Also mention the design tools you're proficient in (e.g., Figma, Sketch).
Testimonials or References (Optional): Include positive feedback from past clients or colleagues if available. This can add credibility to your skills.

Detailed Case Studies

Case studies are your chance to walk your viewers through a project - you don’t want to just show the result, but tell the story behind it. People are naturally drawn to stories, they make a bigger impact than a list of facts…and are a lot less boring. Storytelling also helps make your case study easier to understand for folks who aren’t already familiar with the project.

So what does that story look like? It’s not so different than any other story really, it should have a beginning, middle, and an end. In the UX/UI world, that is the problem, process, and solution.

Problem: As designers, our job is to solve problems for users. Maybe they find a website confusing or are overwhelmed with a busy app. State what specific problem/problems inspired you to do the project.
Process: Final screens are nice to look at, but they’re only part of the story. Including your design process like sharing your research notes, sketches, wireframes, etc shows how you think and your approach.
Solution: You told us what the problem is and shared the journey you took to solve it, now let that solution shine! What was the final product and what was the outcome? For example, you designed a new account creation process (solution) and it resulted in fewer people giving up and more active users (impact).

For each of these, it’s important to remember that attention spans are short and whoever is looking at your portfolio likely won’t be interested in reading walls of words. You need to include visuals along the way: they break up text, highlight key points, and leave a lasting impression – all in a quick scan. Your visuals should at minimum include your wireframes, prototypes, and final designs.

Most Common Mistakes in UX/UI Portfolios

Avoiding Pitfalls

We’ve covered why portfolios are so important and what you should do when creating one, but it’s just as important to be aware of what not to do. Let’s talk about the 4 biggest mistakes designers make when putting together their portfolios.

Lack of Focus

If your portfolio jumps between different styles or fields without rhyme or reason, it makes it hard for potential employers to understand what you're actually good at. Try to pick projects that, when put together, make a statement about you as a designer.

You also want everything in your portfolio to be relevant to the task at hand - showing that you’re an awesome UX/UI designer. Your other work is better shared elsewhere.

Finally, a lack of focus makes it look like you haven't put a lot of thought into your career goals. By taking the time to think through your portfolio and what’s in it, you control the message that it sends into the world.

Overloading with Information

Your portfolio should show off your best work, but that doesn’t mean it needs to show ALL your work. Aim for quality, not quantity. First, if you add a bunch of work to your portfolio without thinking it through, you’ll run into the lack of focus problem we talked about earlier. Second, we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but no one is going to spend all day looking at your portfolio; they will look at one, maybe two projects before making a decision. Make sure those projects are not something you carelessly added to pad your portfolio with case studies.

Poor Visual Presentation

First and foremost, please, we beg you, check the quality of your visuals! If you add blurry images or bad photos to your portfolio, not only does that not do your design work justice, but it also looks careless and unprofessional.

When elements like fonts, colors, and layouts are consistent across your portfolio, viewers can easily navigate and understand your work. It helps them focus on the actual content – your design skills and thought process. On the flip side, if you’re constantly changing fonts or introducing new colors etc, not only are people going to be distracted, but they’re going to seriously question you as a designer. We are all about consistency in this field, and that goes for your portfolio as well.

Neglecting the User Experience of the Portfolio Itself

Imagine a potential employer struggling to find your best work because your portfolio is hard to navigate. As a designer whose whole job is making digital products easy and enjoyable for people to use, that scenario should give you nightmares. Easy navigation lets viewers find what they're interested in quickly, when you only have a few seconds to make an impression, you better make the most of it!

You also want to make sure your portfolio is accessible and works on various devices. This ensures everyone, regardless of technical limitations or ability, can experience your work.

A well-organized and accessible portfolio demonstrates your attention to detail and user-centric approach. It shows you consider the needs of all viewers and can bring that same thoughtful approach to your design projects.

How to Create a Portfolio as a Beginner

Getting Started with No Experience

If you’ve read this far you know that a portfolio is a collection of your best work…but what if you don’t actually have any work? The struggle is real, but don’t worry! Here are some ways you can get work.

Leverage UX Online Courses

Online UX courses are a great way to not only learn necessary design skills, but also to craft your first portfolio project as well. If you’re considering an online program, we recommend finding a course with project guidance, rather than just assignments that don’t add up to anything.

At Avocademy, we have our students identify a real-world problem to work on, then we guide them through the entire UX design process. Each activity is a standard UX deliverable and when you put them all together, they result in a cohesive project. We find that this is a more practical approach because when you finish our program, you’ll also have finished your first portfolio project! Additionally, everything will have been reviewed by a mentor who is an expert in the field so you can feel confident there are no red flags in your design work.

Personal Projects and Redesigns

Personal projects and redesigns are powerful tools for building a UX design portfolio at no cost. You can choose a personal project that highlights a specific UX skill, like user research for a fitness app. Redesigns allow you to demonstrate problem-solving by identifying usability issues in existing apps or websites and creating solutions through a user-centered approach.

Collaboration and Community Projects

Consider participating in a hackathon or completing a design challenge! These events often present a wide range of design problems across various industries which is great experience for a new designer. Many hackathons involve working in teams which is crucial in this field. The resulting project could become a strong portfolio piece and winning or placing well in a hackathon or design challenge adds credibility to your portfolio.

Freelance and Volunteer Work

Working on projects with actual clients exposes you to the entire UX design process in a real-world setting. Websites like Upwork or Fiverr allow you to connect with clients seeking UX design services. Start with smaller projects to build your experience and reputation.

Paid work can be hard to get without experience. Many non-profits need UX work but don’t have the budget to hire designers. Volunteer your services to gain experience while contributing to a good cause!

The Best Sites for Building Your Portfolio

Recommended Platforms

Ready to start building your portfolio? Your first step will be to choose where/how you want to build it, here are some of our recommendations.

Portfolio Builders

Portfolio builders are website builders specifically designed for creating online portfolios. They usually include dedicated templates so you don’t need to start from scratch and you can be sure your portfolio will look sharp. Some portfolio builders include Behance, Dribbble, and Adobe Portfolio.

Personal Websites

Website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are great options as well, although they aren’t specifically geared toward creating portfolios. This gives you more freedom, but less guidance.

Version Control and Collaboration Tools

Imagine a system that keeps track of every change made to a file over time. This is essentially what a version control system (VCS) does. It acts like a time machine for your project files and allows you to collaborate easily with others. You can also use them to share your work! These are often used for projects that involve code. Check out GitHub and GitLab.

Illustrating Your Portfolio with Visuals

Best Practices for Visuals

Earlier we made a big deal about including high-quality visuals in your portfolio, we don’t want to leave you hanging, so here’s info on how to do that!

Creating Useful Images

You don’t need to rely exclusively on screens and prototypes straight from a design file in your portfolio. You can (and should!) create images specifically for your portfolio. Consider adding the following images:

Mockups: A UX design mockup is like a realistic model of an app or website, built before the actual thing is coded. It shows what your designs would look like if they were on a phone or computer.
Screenshots: Take screenshots and feel free to add notes to them! These could include things like sources of inspiration.
Diagrams: Diagrams use pictures and shapes to explain things clearly, like how something works or how different things are connected.

Choosing the Right Image Formats

Here are some technical specifications that will help your portfolio look sharp.

Your portfolio shouldn't take forever to load, remember that viewers are there to get in and get out. WebP is a modern image format designed by Google specifically for the web. WebP files can be a lot smaller than other formats like JPEG or PNG, but provide the same image quality. This means websites load faster and smoother. Ideally, you would use this file type but it’s not the most common, so let’s take a look at the more traditional formats and when to use them.

Use SVG for

Icons and logos. Unlike regular pictures that get blurry when stretched, SVG can be easily resized without losing quality.

Use JPEG for:

Photographs: JPEG is the best choice for photos in your portfolio because it uses a compression method that reduces file size significantly, without major impacts on quality for photos with lots of colors and details.

Use PNG for:

Screenshots and graphics with sharp lines: PNG are good for these because the image quality remains good even when compressed.
Images with transparency: PNG is the only option for images with transparent backgrounds.

Use GIF for:

Simple animations: GIFs are great for short, simple animations in your portfolio. For example, you could use a GIF to show a simple user flow.

Image Optimization

Let’s talk about what else you can do to make sure your portfolio is clear, loads quickly, and looks polished.

Use an image editing software like Photoshop or even some online tools to resize your images to the size they'll be displayed on your portfolio. There's no need to upload a huge photo if it's just going to be shown as a tiny thumbnail. This will help with loading times.

There's a misconception that compressing images always leads to quality loss - choose the right format (see above!) or resize and you should be able to keep a solid image quality.

Make sure to use descriptive (but short!) file names for your images. Clear file names make it easier for you and anyone browsing your portfolio to understand what the image represents. Imagine a file named "IMG_0023.jpg" versus "mobile-app-homepage.jpg." The second option instantly tells viewers what they're looking at. You should also add descriptive alt text with a maximum length of 125 characters to your portfolio images. This helps viewers with screen readers navigate your portfolio and could also improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) meaning it will be easier for others to find your portfolio.

Conclusion

We think that about covers it, let’s review! Building a great UX/UI portfolio is all about showcasing your design skills and thought process through concrete examples. Don't just list your abilities - use strong case studies to tell a captivating story that touches on the problem, process, and solution. High-quality visuals, mockups, and screenshots are key to bringing your design journey to life. Remember, first impressions matter! Make your portfolio user-friendly, accessible, and easy to navigate. Even if you're new to the field, don't be discouraged. Online courses, personal projects, and volunteer work can equip you with the experience and projects you need to craft a portfolio that gets you noticed.

Now you know how to craft compelling case studies, use visuals effectively, and build a user-friendly portfolio. So why wait? Take the first step today! You can start by brainstorming projects or exploring online UX courses to find the best UX design course to help you build your portfolio.