Treat your portfolio as a UX project.
I started taking mentorship sessions on ADPList, and I just concluded one with Darliza, a content designer at Meta. It was definitely as worthwhile as I expected. P.s it is funny how I have not had a bad mentorship experience on ADPList, and I am glad. If you haven’t tried it out yet, this is your cue to do so today.
A major takeout from my session with Darliza was her advice, “treat your portfolio as a UX project.” I found this advice very interesting because it was my first time thinking about it in that light, and it made a lot of sense. Let me walk you through it, in my understanding.
When you are starting a UX project, you know how you carry out vital user research. This should be the same with your portfolio. Looking at other people’s portfolios for inspiration is a great start! It would help if you also looked at different job descriptions of the role(s) you aspire to get and tailored your portfolio to showcase that you meet those requirements.
After completing your research, you should sketch an outline and speak to various designers in your field and possibly recruiters to let them know your thought process before you start designing. That is usability testing. Then, you can start designing while integrating the feedback you get from them. You should also take into consideration what would help for better accessibility. Also, it would help if you used your different projects/case studies to showcase your different design skills. For example, one project could showcase your user research skills in detail, while the other could be more focused on showcasing your visual design skills.
When you are done with the designs, you should conduct another usability testing round to get feedback from other designers, mentors, recruiters, and hiring managers. Then you iterate on your design to reflect their feedback and suggestions. Remember that iteration is a continuous process, so I suggest you use a tool you are comfortable with so you can always go back to update your portfolio with ease.
I enjoyed writing this and I would actually start sharing my takeouts from the amazing sessions I have on ADPList, so stay tuned! By the way, I completed a 100 minutes streak milestone on ADPList, and I was given an award badge that is so cute!
