How to build a case study and portfolio when you have no experience yet? [duplicate]

Question

I am trying to make a good impression and wanted to show everything I've learned from my Google UX certification in a course I took from Coursera. How can I best show it? Is there some websites that I can use to create a case study about without disappointing the recruiter?

Answer 1

Showcasing what you've learned from your Google UX certification can be achieved effectively through creating a well-documented case study or several case studies. Here's how you can go about it:

1. Choose a Project or Topic:

• Real-world Projects: Ideally, if you've worked on any real-world projects, you should focus on them. These can be personal projects, freelance work, or even academic projects.
• Hypothetical Redesign: If you haven't worked on a real-world project, consider doing a hypothetical redesign of an existing product or website. This can demonstrate your ability to identify UX issues and come up with solutions.
• Concept Projects: Create a new app or website concept from scratch, based on a unique idea or a gap in the market.

2. Document the UX Process:

• Research: Discuss the initial user research, surveys, interviews, or any other methodologies you used.
• Personas & User Flows: Show how you've distilled research into user personas and created user flows based on these personas.
• Wireframes & Prototypes: Share your low-fidelity wireframes, moving on to high-fidelity designs and interactive prototypes.
• Usability Testing: Detail the testing methods you used, feedback received, and how you iterated based on that feedback.
• Final Design & Reflection: Present the finalized design and reflect on the overall process, challenges faced, and learnings.

3. Choose a Platform to Showcase:

• Behance
• Medium
• Personal Website
• Dribbble
• LinkedIn

4. Tell a Story: UX is not just about pretty designs; it's about solving problems. Ensure your case study narrates the story of how you addressed a user's problem, the challenges you faced, and how you overcame them.

5. Solicit Feedback: Before publishing or sharing your case study, get feedback from peers, mentors, or other professionals in the field.

6. Prepare for Discussion: Be ready to discuss your case study in interviews. The recruiter might ask questions to understand your thought process, the choices you made, or how you handled certain challenges.

7. Consider Ethics and Permissions:

• If you're using real-world projects, ensure you have permission to share any proprietary or sensitive information.
• If doing a hypothetical redesign, clarify that it's an exercise and not an official project.

Lastly, when showcasing anything, whether it's a real project or a hypothetical redesign, it's the quality, depth, and your process that matter the most, not necessarily the brand or website you chose. Focus on showing how you think, how you approach problems, and how you leverage your UX skills to find solutions

Answer 2

Making a portfolio website without experience can be a tricky task especially in roles like these (design, UX, etc.).

So, I think it's best you lean into the fact that you are new and are a good learner. Those will be your strengths and your site will have to represent that.

You'll want your site to show what types of things you want to learn and also be an advertisement of what types of experiences you want to help build.

Your best bet to achieve this is to create a blogging site using Wordpress or even ditch the whole idea of making your own site and use other sites like notion or medium. You want to talk about things that you feel passionate about, mainly because it will fuel you to finish articles, which will be your biggest challenge.

Btw, you can check out my site (https://kitanga.dev), or anyone's on this platform really, they all have great sites from what I've seen. Mine though, is primarily designed to show what type of experiences I want to build, it's still a work in progress, but I'm certain it's current state is good enough to make it into this answer.