Avoid these 5 UX portfolio mistakes.

What if I told you that if you avoid just 5 design portfolio mistakes, you would reduce your chances of getting that annoying rejection email when you apply for a UX design role? We all know how annoying that email can be. I know this because I go through hundreds of design portfolios monthly to handpick the top 1% on my portfolio inspiration website, and I've noticed a pattern of mistakes in the 99% that don't get picked. Mistake number 1 is weak first impressions. First impressions matter everywhere, even when you're searching for a job. From the moment when you start sharing the link to your portfolio on a job application portal or on social media, you've started creating impressions and you need to start strong. There are 2 ways that you create a first impression when you share the link to your portfolio. The first one is the thumbnail that shows in the place that you share the link. So if you share the link on social media or in a job application portal, there's a high chance that a thumbnail is going to show that describes what your portfolio is about. If you don't customize a thumbnail for your portfolio, one is going to be assigned to it. Sometimes it might just be empty, and when you do this, it doesn't make you stand out because there's a chance that you would have other people that have submitted their portfolios in the same link, and it's easy for the design recruiter to understand the kind of portfolio that he or she is looking at just because other people have customized their own thumbnails, and then your own thumbnail is is empty. So to fix this, you want to make sure that you customize the thumbnail that actually shows when you share a link to your portfolio. You can do this on the content management system that you use to build your portfolio. So if you've used Framer, there's a way for you to do this on Framer, and I'm sure other content management systems like Wix, Sempli, and Squarespace actually allow you to do this. You just need to make sure that you are customizing the thumbnail that shows so that you can use that as an edge against other people that are applying for the same role as you are. The second way you are creating a first impression is the topmost description on the landing page of your portfolio. So I'm talking about the topmost hero section text that you use to describe yourself. Where a lot of designers make mistakes here is that they use vague buzzwords to describe themselves. It just comes off as you are not exactly sure the value that you bring. That is why you're using all those words to describe yourself. So what you want to do here is to make sure that rather than using big buzzwords to describe yourself. You are using clear words that communicate the core value that you bring to a team to describe yourself at the header text on your portfolio. This is usually the biggest text on your portfolio anyway, so you want to make sure that your description is strong because it's only a few lines that talks about who you are and the value that you bring. So you can talk about the value that you bring to the team, to a team, or the core values that you believe in as a designer, or you could even talk about a summary of your past experience. So for example, instead of using buzzwords like, I'm a multidisciplinary designer that uses an empathetic, human-centered approach to help businesses solve problems, you can say something like, I'm a product designer currently creating smart automobile experiences at Volvo. Previously, I helped people manage their finances at Clio. This way you're talking about the exact thing that you did and your past experience and the fact that you've been able to work across multiple industries, in this case, an automobile mobile industry and the finance industry. This makes you come across as somebody that understands how to communicate the value that they bring to the team. Mistake number 2 is weak visual design. Hiring designers can easily tell if a designer has earned their stripes by assessing their visual communication skills. Strong visual design stops the scroll, while weak visual design makes it easy to dismiss your portfolio. Your role as a designer will always require strong visual communication skills. If you can't show that in your portfolio, then you're going to join the 99% of portfolios that never make it beyond the 5-second scan. That's trash. To improve the visual design of your portfolio, you should focus on 3 things: your use of colors, your typography, and imagery. For the use of colors on your portfolio, ensure that you have a really good theme for your portfolio. Your theme could be a light theme or it could be a dark theme. That is going to form the foundation of everything. So for a light theme portfolio, for example, your portfolio is probably something that has like a light white background, or for a dark theme, your portfolio is something that has like a dark background. And then you can use things like imagery to bring in some color into your portfolio rather than using colored text or just having a lot of colors on your portfolio. This is where you get to showcase your work. When thinking about use of colors for your portfolio, think about your portfolio like a museum or an art gallery. When you visit art galleries, you realize that a lot of times the backdrops are usually a single color, usually white, mostly white. Sometimes you have some that have like some kind of dark color. Or in a museum, you just find out that the backdrop is usually a simple color. The reason for this is that you want to make sure that the work takes the center stage, right? So when you think about your portfolio as a museum or an art gallery where you are showcasing your work, you're going to make sure that the work is what takes the center stage. So when you are bringing in color into your portfolio, the work should be how you bring in colors into your portfolio. The way to bring in colors into your portfolio is through the mockups that you use, is through the actual designs that you put on it, is through the prototypes that you share. It is not about painting the portfolio with like a background color and then you have colored text and all of that. Just visualize what an art gallery looks like and see how you can recreate that same experience with your portfolio. That way you will be able to understand how you can have a good use of color on your portfolio. For typography, just think about ways to pair your fonts properly. First of all, don't use too many fonts. Start with using maximum of 2 fonts, one major font for like your headers, your bold text, and then another font for like your body text. Make sure that your text is very readable. Make sure that your text is legible. Focus on the spacing between the text and all of these small details that make things look very, very premium and professional. And then I already spoke about how you can introduce imagery through your mockups, through the actual work that you've done, through your own personal pictures, or through other pictures that you're trying to use to reference something that you've written about. That is how you introduce imagery into your portfolio. By the time you have a good mix of color, typography, and imagery, you would start to see that the visual design of the portfolio will start to come together. Mistake number 3 is bootcamp case studies. Bootcamp case studies are those case studies that follow a generic template and has all the UX artifacts that are taught in bootcamp but are rarely applied in the real world. I once had one of these case studies years ago and I understand exactly how cringy it looks. Although looking back, those case studies worked for me then, but now there's a lot more competition in the industry and everyone has this kind of case studies. Design recruiters can spot this kind of case studies from a mile and it really puts them off because it's boring, it is inauthentic, and it makes you look like you're inexperienced. You can fix this by creating engaging case studies following this 3-step framework. The first part of the framework is to create a curiosity gap with your title. Always keep in mind that the audience that your portfolio is tailored to has a very short attention span. So you want to grab their attention by creating a strong title or a strong visual of the final outcome of your solution, or even better, a combination of a strong title and a strong visual of what the final solution looks like. The only thing you want them to think about when they come across the title of your case study is, oh, I should dig deeper into this, or I think this is worth my time, or this sounds interesting. Those are the kind of thoughts that you want to go on in your audience's mind when they see your title. That way they think about your title as something that makes them more curious, and that way you are creating a curiosity gap to make them say, hey, I need to dig deeper into this to understand exactly what is happening here. I'm not asking you to create clickbait, but you almost have to make sure that you think properly about your title and make the reader more interested in what the content of that particular case study is. It's like, it's like thinking about a movie title or the way I thought about the title for this YouTube video that made you to click. For example, if the project you have worked on is a travel app called Travellex that allows people to share their travel stories, Instead of using a title like the TravelX app, you could use a title like helping 1,000 people share their stories while they travel. The first one is boring and bland, while the second one immediately sparks some curiosity that makes me as a reader want to dig deeper. The second step in the framework is to provide an overview. Always think that your audience has just 45 seconds to go through your case study. Even if you've been able to grab their attention, with your title, still assume that they have only 45 seconds to go through your case study. So now you want to provide an overview of what the entire project is about. So this is where you provide a summary of what you did, why you did it, and the impact. This should be a summary of like 2 sentences, for example, something that someone could read in less than 1 minute. Now, when you've done this, the third part of the framework is where you then get into the how, which is What your design process was like and what the outcome is. What are the obstacles that you came across? This is where you get into the meat of the portfolio. Now, if you're able to grab the attention of the design recruiter from the title where you create a curiosity gap and you also are able to get them to be more interested just reading your overview and they start to go through your actual case study, there's a high chance that your portfolio is going to get picked. So this is why you're using these tactics to lure them in gradually. I'd like to go a lot deeper into how this can be done and actually provide really, really clear examples. So I think I'm going to make another video on that topic. If you'd like that to be my next video, just comment case study video in the comment section and I'll be sure to line that up for you. Mistake number 4 is zero personality. A lot of design portfolios I've come across lack personality. It is so hard to tell the real person behind the portfolios. This is something that design recruiters are actually looking for beyond the technical skills that make you a designer. They also want to find cultural fit, so they want to understand the person that is behind this portfolio. And the mistake I've seen a lot of designers make is that they copy a portfolio without adding their own unique twist to it. I'm a big fan of copying, but I love to copy from different sources, and then I also love to add my own unique twist to And that is the right way to copy. So when you're copying other portfolios or when you're trying to get inspiration from other portfolios, make sure that you're adding your own unique twist to it. Your unique twist that you add to your portfolio is where your personality starts to shine through. Here are 2 ways that you can add personality to your portfolio. The first way is to use visual design to add personality to your portfolio. In using visual design to add personality to your portfolio, You can think about a visual design pattern that is slightly disruptive, that is not common, and introduce that into your portfolio. There are a couple of examples of portfolios that have this pattern, and I'm going to link those portfolios in the description of this video. The other way you can introduce some personality into your portfolio is to go hard on your About Me page. The About Me page is one of the most popular pages on a portfolio. In fact, a lot of design recruiters check the About Me page before they start checking the work because sometimes they want to understand who is behind the work before they actually see the work. So in your About Me page, talk a little bit more about yourself. Talk about what motivates you. Talk about your design principles, your design philosophy. Talk about what interests you. Talk about what you're listening to. Talk about what you're reading. Talk about your hobbies and support those things with images. This makes it easier to connect with you as a designer. The last mistake, which is mistake number 5, is getting stuck in consumption mode. A lot of designers actually consume a lot and create too little. So you would find out that a lot of designers have been working on their portfolios for, for months. They've been working on their portfolios for longer than anything, and it just never finishes. So you're constantly getting inspiration, constantly consuming inspiration. You're always consuming, but you're not creating. So you have to get out of that loop. You have to get out of the consumption loop and start creating. So you consume less and start creating more. Because the only way that you can tell if your portfolio actually works is if you publish it and you share a link to it to a job application and see what kind of response that you get from that. It's good practice to find inspiration from many sources, but all the inspiration in the world is useless if you have nothing to show for it. When it comes to creating your portfolio, done is better than perfect. Here's what you need to do to shift from consumption to creation. You need to treat your portfolio like it's a UX design project. Assuming the project framework you're using is a double diamond design process. Finding inspiration is the discovery phase. Writing your case studies, outlining the structure of your portfolio, and deciding on a content management system or website builder tool is the definition phase. Creating your portfolio is the development phase, and sending out a link to your portfolio after it's done is the delivery phase. Each of these phases should have set timelines to ensure that you're not stuck in the consumption loop. I hope these tips help you to avoid these common mistakes and increases your chances of landing your next UX design role. If you got any value from this video, hit the like button and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this. And please share with your friends as well. I'll see you in the next video.