how to create a ux research portfolio

• Blog Home Home
• Explore by categories Categories TOPICS Case Studies Information Architecture Product Development UI/UX Design User Research User Testing UX Career UX Tips Women in UX
• News and Updates News
• UX Glossary

Save Time and Frustration

Say No to Poorly Designed Products!

How to Build a Strong UX Research Portfolio

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In the realm of user experience, UX research portfolios are a commonplace tool for professionals in the field. This article aims to provide a comprehensive guide to help explore what UX research portfolios are, why they’re important, and offers valuable insight about how to create the most impactful UX research portfolio possible.

Key Takeaways:

➡️ UX research portfolios serve as invaluable tools for effectively conveying the skill, expertise, and experience of a UX researcher

❗ UX research portfolios typically showcase previous work , accompanied by a bio or ‘about’ section providing insights to the researcher’s background

✅ Case studies craft a compelling narrative about problems solved and incorporate deliverables and key outcomes  

🧠 Strong UX research portfolios help candidates stand out in a competitive job market

💡 UX research portfolios are a standard in the user experience industry, and offer a benchmark for showcasing one’s capabilities and accomplishments

What is a UX research portfolio?

A UX research portfolio is a thoughtfully curated collection of an individual UX researcher’s work that showcases experience and expertise in the field of user experience (UX) research. UX research is the systematic process of studying the behaviors, attitudes, pain points and habits of end users who interact with a product or service. Its primary objective is to gain insights that can enable designers and teams to make more informed design decisions for the product.

UX research portfolios typically include a range of projects, case studies, or other examples that exhibit a researcher’s distinct methodology . They often showcase tangible deliverables like personas or user journey maps , and explain how findings from research influenced the overall product or design.

Strong portfolios detail how research impacted a business or project goal, strategy, or metric, in a positive way. 

UX research portfolios can be likened to the canvas of a researcher’s professional journey. Just as an artist’s canvas beautifully displays their artwork, a UX researcher’s portfolio is crafted to showcase the accomplishments and experiences of their career journey .

By painting a vivid picture of their research abilities and talents, a portfolio can leave a lasting impression on potential clients or employers, capturing their attention and appreciation.

What is the purpose of a UX research portfolio?

The job market for UX researchers (or designers) can be fiercely competitive, particularly in areas of high demand for research professionals. Recent years have seen significant shifts in the landscape of UX research, highlighted by a surge in demand for skilled practitioners, scarcity of senior-level positions, and an ever-changing set of required skills.  

Within that competitive landscape, certain expectations for researchers arise.

Qualified UX researchers must exhibit an expected level of skill or experience, and portfolios are the industry standard method for displaying those qualities. Employers look to recruit talented researchers for positions in their organizations – and sift out candidates by reviewing and comparing their portfolios and resumes . 

For UX researchers early in their careers, portfolios can be an invaluable tool to help secure employment .

In a sometimes cruel and unforgiving job market, junior researchers are easily overlooked by companies seeking more senior talent. Without experience, these junior researchers sink to the bottom of the talent pool of potential candidates. Where experience may be limited, however, a strong portfolio of case studies can help prospective researchers rise above the rest . 

It is important to note, however, that while strong UX research portfolios can open doors to interviews, it does not guarantee immediate employment . Successful integration into a new team or company requires additional skills beyond portfolio preparation and presentation.

Qualities like effective communication, collaboration, leadership, adaptability , and other soft skills are vital to help researchers excel and rise above other candidates. These transferable skills become a strength for researchers with less experience than their counterparts.

A mix of skill, experience, and common organizational skills are indispensable components to what makes a UX researcher successful, and portfolios are the medium where UX researchers convey a compelling snapshot of their talents. 

What should a UX research portfolio include?

If a UX research portfolio serves as the canvas of a researcher’s professional journey the same way an artist’s canvas constructs a visual story, masterfully crafting individual details in a research portfolio is key.

Some of the most important elements to a strong portfolio include the following:

• Project case studies. Case studies form the backbone of a UX portfolio. They are the essential, primary content that best demonstrates the researcher’s skill, expertise, and capabilities. They depict problems encountered and the steps taken to solve those problems. Highlighting a few case studies is crucial, as well-constructed quality studies can have a lasting impact.
• Process methodology. Communicating the process from the beginning to the end is what potential clients or employers are looking for. They seek to understand how a researcher will work with them in their organization. Clearly outlining the process taken to solve a particular prompt or problem enables others to envision what it would be like to work with a particular researcher. Condensing the research process into clear, digestible steps highlights effective communication skills.
• Research deliverables. Visuals and other assets serve as tangible demonstrations of a researcher’s ability to digest inputs (or data) into valuable outputs. For example, condensing vast amounts of user information and synthesizing research into assets like personas or customer journey maps showcases the researcher’s understanding of the target audience’s pain points and improvement opportunities. Highlight all deliverables that added value to the project.
• Key outcomes, metrics, or impact. Understanding the impact of a problem solved is one of the most important details UX researchers can highlight in their portfolios. Businesses interested in tangible results want to understand the value research provides, and teams want to understand how work they invest in aligns with their overall strategy and goals. Measurable outcomes detail the thorough understanding needed to focus on high-impact problems that provide the value organizations prioritize.
• Contact or connection. Encourage viewers to take action by providing actionable and easy steps to contact you or connect. Enabling potential customers the ability to continue engaging with you helps convert interest into opportunity. 

Conduct UX Research with UXtweak!

The only UX research tool you need to visualize your customers’ frustration and better understand their issues

These aforementioned areas tend to draw the most attention from viewers. However, additional secondary details are also needed to contribute to a strong portfolio. Subtle details in a UX research portfolio, though not immediately visible, evoke a subconscious impression – much like the secondary elements in an artist’s canvas enhance the overall beauty and depth of a piece.

Keep in mind the following elements when curating your portfolio:

• Writing. Clear communication is key in all you do. Having simple and effective communication and documentation demonstrates the ability to be concise. In a world full of emails, messages, and notifications, it’s difficult to stay focused – and viewers tend to read through only the first couple words of a sentence. Formatting content in ways that are easy to scan (bullets, headings, bolding, etc.) and convey a concise message is vital to success in your work. 
• Collaboration. Highlight how you collaborated with others on projects. Potential clients or employers will look for how a UX researcher collaborated with others on a project. Most research isn’t done in a vacuum, and showcasing what you did individually and with a group provides greater depth into individual skill while also demonstrating the ability to work with others when needed.
• Testimonials. Testimonials demonstrate what it’s like to work with you and can create a powerful impression. Audaciously listing all of the details as to why you’d be a great addition to another’s team is easily overpowered by someone’s simple testimony of their experience working with you. Include references from those who have had positive experiences working with you.

How to make a UX research portfolio? 

Constructing a compelling portfolio involves several key steps. Here are some of the best steps to keep in mind when crafting or enhancing your own portfolio to make it the best it can be.

1. Know your audience

Consider the individuals who will be reviewing your portfolio. Are they potential clients that need to understand the skills of an independent contractor? Are they potential employers who need to understand how you will integrate into their team?

Take a user-centered approach in constructing your UX research portfolio. Tailor content, case studies, and details toward your target audience to find greater alignment and success with the type of work you aspire to do.

2. Select impactful projects

Rather than overwhelming viewers with a plethora of projects, curate 2-3 of your best works . Quality triumphs over quantity as viewers compare your portfolio to many others.

Hiring managers don’t have time to go through 5+ case studies for each potential candidate. Even though experienced researchers may have many projects to choose from, don’t give into the temptation to highlight all of them . Focus your efforts on 2-3 incredible case studies to help you stand out.

3. Showcase your work

Case studies are the traditional way of showcasing work on a given project. If choosing to highlight your work with case studies, ensure you provide proper context to the work.

Was this a team or individual effort? If you collaborated with others, how and when did you do so? Craft a meaningful story for each project you showcase. Be concise, but provide details that will be meaningful to your audience.

4. Demonstrate your process

As a UX researcher, detailing your process is key . Highlight the decisions you made and explain why you made them.

Demonstrate which research methods you used, and how you conducted your studies. Speak to any constraints the project had (timelines, business pressure, lack of resources, etc.). Summarize findings of what you learned throughout. 

5. Highlight deliverables

Deliberately break up the content of your case study by including artifacts that provide valuable context. These elements provide tangible evidence that you conducted the research, and showcases your ability to synthesize data into digestible artifacts others can use.

Deliverables like r esearch plans , wireframes, testimonials, affinity diagrams , storyboards , excerpts from diary studies or other reports are all examples of deliverables you could include. Highlight what was created as a result of the research.

6. Communicate impact

Calculate the positive impact your work had on the organization. If the research led to measurable differences in results, highlight them by including a before-and-after section .

Hiring managers are making a business decision when hiring a UX researcher, and they need to understand how you will bring value to their business. Examples of how you’ve brought measurable change in the past helps convey to others you can find ways to drive results for their organization as well.

7. Present yourself

Remember that you’re not just telling a story about your work, but about yourself as well. Be natural and genuine in your portfolio in the way you communicate.

Convey what you love about your work and tell your story about why you’re a UX researcher. Include personal tidbits of what makes you unique and present yourself as a well-rounded professional.

Learn more about Why we do UX Research?

8. Test your portfolio

Once completed, enlist help from trusted individuals to examine your portfolio. Have them test functionality, making sure it’s working online and across devices.

Be open to feedback and ideas that come. Make edits to your writing and work based on their suggestions. Work out any kinks before sharing with potential clients or employers. 

9. Share and iterate

Now that the hard work is done, begin sharing it with others. Continue to stay open to feedback, and make changes when necessary. Use it to pitch yourself for opportunities or jobs, providing concrete examples during discussions. The combination of your talent, experience, and the innate personal touch you bring will help you secure the kind of work you desire and find long-term happiness.

Keep in mind that rejection is part of the journey, and that’s okay. Not every opportunity will be the right fit for you, and businesses need to make decisions that align with their needs as well.

Don’t get discouraged, but press on and continue to work hard and believe that your efforts will pay off. Build bridges and relationships along the way. Continue to gain experience and enhance your portfolio iteratively if finding success continues to take time.

Storytelling through UX research portfolios

Vinod Punyani, a Senior Manager of UX Research Design at Walmart Global Tech, believes that storytelling is one of the most critical skills research professionals should practice and embody.

“When I review portfolios of candidates for a role on the research team, regardless of the level I am recruiting for, I assess the candidates’ storytelling abilities. I consider storytelling to be one of the most critical skill sets for researchers. 

I am familiar with the standard advice for structuring the case studies in a portfolio – namely specifying your role, articulating your thought process and approach, and highlighting your learnings along the way. Most candidates’ portfolios I’ve reviewed follow similar patterns, 

With that said, I also look for the candidates’ abilities to set the stage, surface the problem, highlight the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. I look for impressions of a candidate’s ability to influence change – which I believe to be an outcome of effective storytelling.”

Vinod states that while research acumen is important, being able to influence change in an organization is a key element to doing meaningful work in any organization. Storytelling is at the heart of how ideas are shared and how outcomes are articulated. 

Ensuring that you’re telling an engaging story through your work will ensure you have a greater chance of capturing the attention of a hiring manager - and potential stakeholder in the future.

Creating a strong UX research portfolio includes crafting an impactful story to support it. Articulating that story to others is a skill necessary to succeed in the field of UX research today. 

UX research portfolio examples

When seeking to enhance or create your portfolio, it’s helpful to look at other examples.

Here are a few portfolios worth exploring for inspiration:

• Aakriti Chugh – Aakriti’s portfolio showcases well-constructed case studies that effectively demonstrate her skills. Explore her work at: https://www.aakriti-chugh.in/#work
• Carl Pearson – Carl’s portfolio stands out with personal blog posts that help showcase his writing ability and industry knowledge. Discover more at:  https://carljpearson.com/what-does-a-quantitative-ux-researcher-do/
• Tiffany Yang – Tiffany’s video walkthrough of the case study that got her hired is an encouraging example of the steps it takes to secure employment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YswWJV4NUkE   

Take the time to explore these portfolios, and search for additional ones that you admire. Understand how others communicated their strengths, and find ways to highlight your own natural abilities and talent.

UX research templates

For additional resources to enhance your testing or UX research portfolio needs, check out the available templates and tools below: 

• Research and analysis templates – MURAL offers a collection of design research templates ➡️ Explore them here  
• UX research template – Miro provides a UX research plan template to assist in structuring research. They also have many additional templates to leverage. ➡️ Access this template  
• User journey map guide – Learn more about creating user journey maps with the comprehensive guide provided by UXtweak.
• Preference test tool – Additionally, check out UXtweak’s preference test tool to help find even more valuable insights through research.
• Figma portfolio template – Using a Figma portfolio template from the Figma community offers a free template to get started with designing your portfolio. ➡️ Check out the template
• Product research guide – Gain insights into product research with this invaluable guide from UXtweak.
• Card sorting tool – Card sorting helps facilitate information architecture exercises, and is a useful tool to help conduct your research studies.

Wrapping up

Crafting a compelling UX research portfolio that appeals to future employers is no easy task. However, by leveraging some of the best practices for showcasing your work and using storytelling, you’ll be able to stand out from other candidates and secure your dream job.

And if you’re looking for an all-in-one UX tool to help you with research throughout this journey – take a look at UXtweak! Create your UXtweak account , start testing today and master one more essential UX research skill – working with online research tools!

FAQ: UX Research Portfolio

Yes. Most UX professionals have previously had, or actively maintain, a portfolio exhibiting their work. Doing so allows them to present their past work and showcase their talent to potential clients or employers.

Well-structured portfolios give others insight into what it’s like to work with the researcher and help them understand the methodologies they employ. It also provides evidence of experience in a competitive job market. 

Creating a UX research portfolio begins by understanding your audience and selecting projects from your experience that highlights skills relevant to your target audience. Demonstrate your UX research process, and showcase skills and expertise to help you stand out from others. Include deliverables, assets, or artifacts that surfaced from your research.

UX research portfolios should include detailed projects or case studies that highlight the expertise and experience of the researcher. They typically include elements such as (but not limited to) process outlines, methodologies, captured visuals, testimonials, personas, journey maps, outcomes, recommendations, and metrics . Any elements that highlight the skill of the researcher may be included.

John is a seasoned UX designer with a successful track record leading design initiatives for top companies in the United States. Through his years of experience, he has gained a wealth of knowledge on design principles, practices, and concepts, which he shares with others through his writing. After completing his business degree, John discovered the world of UX design and recognized its potential to combine his creative passions with his love for technology and problem-solving. Since then, he has been dedicated to advancing his skills and expertise in this field, and helps to promote others in the industry hoping to do the same.

UXtweak is buzzing with expert UX research, making thousands of products more user friendly every day

Best Lyssna (UsabilityHub) alternatives in 2024

You must’ve already heard about Lyssna, a well-known UX research platform. We've compiled a list of the best Lyssna alternatives for you, evaluating their costs, benefits and drawbacks. Read more ...

Service Blueprint: Definition, Example & Templates

Service blueprint: what it is, why it’s useful, how do you create one, examples, templates and best practices. Read a complex guide to service blueprinting in this article. Read more ...

5 reasons why your team needs a UX researcher

Who is a UX researcher and why you need to hire one right now? In this article, we will provide you with tips on how a UX researcher positively influences your team. Read more ...

• Card Sorting
• Tree Testing
• Preference Test
• Five Second Test
• Session Recording
• Freeform Interviews
• Study Interviews
• Mobile Testing
• First Click Test
• Prototype Testing
• Website Testing
• Onsite Recruiting
• Own Database
• Documentation
• Product features
• Comparisons

• Portfolio Tips
• Career Tips
• Portfolio Examples
• Get UXfolio!

23 Succesful UX Portfolio Examples and a Guide for Creating Yours

Klaudia Simon

Design leads always start with portfolios when reviewing candidates. That’s why all UX designers – juniors and seniors alike – need an impressive  UX portfolio . Though putting one together might seem daunting, once you get an idea of what it takes, the rest comes quickly. So, let’s get started by checking out some awesome UX portfolio examples:

Kyle Kovacs

This example shows: consistency is the key to creating a stunning UX portfolio on a tight schedule. Kyle uses the same font throughout the portfolio, adjusting only its size or weight. This results in a sleek look. Also, he’s frugal with words on his portfolio’s landing page. This is in line with the newest UX portfolio trend: minimalist writing. Many designers add long sentences of eloquent introduction to their home page, and in most cases, it reads awkward or even forced. Don’t be afraid to keep it brief on your landing page! Design leads and recruiters care about design skills first. And your personality can shine on your About page, like Kyle’s.

Maxwell Marra

Maxwell’s UX portfolio website is an impressive showcase of his skills as a UI/UX designer & creative lead. The site’s design is pristine and intuitive, reflecting Marra’s commitment to user-centric design principles alongside his understanding of the latest UX portfolio trends. His projects – which range from the redesign of a budgeting app to a winter sports app – highlight his ability to translate innovative ideas into delightful digital experiences.

Max’s is the perfect example of what a UX portfolio should look like. Here’s why: it’s light and airy, with satisfying, pastel colors and soft, rounded corners. The UX of Max’s portfolio is also on point since the case studies are easy to reach, and the content is concise. And by making the case studies’ titles appear on hover, he didn’t compromise on the UI either. So, Max’s is a solid UX portfolio in all aspects.

Adrian Weber

Look no further for a portfolio to use as a basis for yours. Roland’s portfolio conforms to all UX portfolio best practices: only the basics in his hero section, 3 of the most important pages in the navigation, and 2 case studies presented matching thumbnails. It’s effortless, usable, and elegant.

Karl Ligeti

If you take a look at the best UX design portfolio examples, you’ll soon realize that the liberal use of whitespace is fundamental to all of them. Yet still, many designers – especially juniors – are frugal with it because they fear that their portfolio will look empty. If you’re unsure about whitespace, check out Karl’s portfolio: it has a minimalist design with plenty of whitespace, yet the portfolio doesn’t look empty.

The right template with the right typography is all you need for a stunning UX design portfolio. The cream background of Jessica’s portfolio is in perfect harmony with the elegant, thin Raleway font she chose. Scrolling down, you’ll see harmonized case study thumbnails that she created with UXfolio’s Thumbnail designer. The outcome is just amazing. As soon as you land on this portfolio, you know that you can relax because its creator knows what she’s doing. This sense of relief is very important when it comes to landing a job, and it’s best achieved by following 5 simple guidelines: soothing color palette, consistent typography, brief copy, abundant whitespace, and coordinated visuals.

Rebeca Gordo

Combining neon colors with dark shades results in a modern and stylish look. But only if you hit the right balance with the neon, as it can turn obnoxious very easily. The best way around this is to use the neon as an accent, instead of a primary color, like Rebeca did in her UX/UI portfolio. As you can see, she used it to highlight some of her text, while keeping the rest of her portfolio, including her UX/UI case study thumbnails, easy on the eye. Don’t forget, that a solid dark background color – like Rebeca’s – is just as universal as a simple white background, however, it lends an effortless edge to the portfolio’s vibe. If it fits your personality, give it a try!

Rachel Baek

Rachel B is a UX designer and researcher who translates academic research into user-friendly products. Rachel’s portfolio is easy on the eye with its refined design and a comforting color scheme that reflects her personality and style. She follows UX portfolio best practices by using a consistent layout and clear navigation through and through. Her UX case studies highlight her hard skills, such as UX research, wireframing, and prototyping, as well as her soft skills, such as communication and collaboration. Rachel’s portfolio is a great example of how to portray, promote, and showcase a wide range of design skills in a captivating manner.

Hana Nakano

Hana used UXfolio’s Norman template as her base, transforming it into something unique with the available customization options and features. The intense blue accent color creates an exciting contrast with the white background. Her thumbnails are in perfect harmony because she created them with UXfolio’s Thumbnail designer. This feature allows you to design professional thumbnails inside UXfolio: just bring your designs and the rest is on us! Hana’s portfolio is proof that you can create a memorable UX portfolio without overdesigning it.

David Bornfirend

David’s UX portfolio website is a masterclass in clean and modern design. The homepage is pure yet attention-grabbing thanks to the large headline that sets the tone for the rest of the website. This direction, combined with the black-white-gray color palette, underlines David’s professionalism also apparent from his well-structured and stunning case studies, in which he achieves the perfect balance between copy and visuals.

Krista Laiho

Krista is a senior UI/UX designer with nearly ten years of experience, which is clearly reflected in her portfolio. She uses a UX portfolio template with a sidebar, which calls for a specific approach to ensure that her visitors’ attention is on her projects. This involves keeping the intro on the right side brief and eliminating unnecessary design elements, so as to not steal the attention from the project grid on the other side of the screen. Krista included a portrait of herself right on the home page, which is usually advised against. However, in her case, it elevates the overall impression because it looks professionally done. Finally, she coordinated her project covers perfectly by using the same device mockup styles and colors, achieving an uber-polished effect.

Aniela Carolina

Aniela has been a designer for 10 years and her experience is obvious from the way she presents herself and her work. First of all, she chose a lovely accent color and applied it consistently throughout various elements of her pages. Furthermore, she uses icons and typography to create a sharp content hierarchy. The longer case study titles on her home page act as super-descriptive snippets into the projects. She included 3 projects in her portfolio, yet, as you scroll through her home page, it feels and looks more because of the project grid she chose in UXfolio’s editor.

Annie Nguyen

Annie’s portfolio stands out for its sharp design, fonts, and clean thumbnails. She keeps the copy minimal on her home page, which prompts us to jump right into one of her detailed UX case studies. We like the way she tagged each case study: her role, the field, and the design type. This way, if someone’s looking for a mobile designer, they can jump right into the mobile design case study. Saving time for your users is among the top 3 things you can do for them. This applies to all products, including your UX portfolio.

Kevin Hursey

An effortless and chic portfolio that’s proof: you can never go wrong by keeping your UX portfolio’s design lowkey. Here, the focus is on elegant typography and fantastic case studies. And the result is top-notch. It’s evident that Kevin’s confident in his skills and work. He doesn’t need to compensate with an overdesigned portfolio like so many designers. If you wonder why just check out the Brightminds case study. It has a solid structure, crisp visuals, and engaging storytelling that highlights UX. It’s one of the most popular UX case studies on UXfolio’s Showcase .

Robyn Hines

Here we have a fun yet still elegant portfolio. There are a few fantastic tricks up Robyn’s sleeves that we’d like to highlight. First, check out how she uses those diffused, colorful blobs in the background of her thumbnails to tie them together. The thumbnails link to very different projects, yet they are in perfect harmony on the home page. Second, Robyn uses a layout that fills up her portfolio. By making the thumbnails bigger and presenting them in a vertical list, the portfolio doesn’t look empty. If she’d use small thumbnails on a grid layout, the perception would be quite the opposite.

Alyssa Ignacio

If you’re looking for the perfect, non-cliché designer statement, check out Alyssa’s: “Making a positive impact on my communities through collaboration, empathy, and endless funfetti cookies.” As simple as it is, this intro – mixed with the warm tones of her portfolio – makes her instantly likable. She keeps to this much-welcome conciseness throughout the portfolio. Though the whole UX/UI portfolio looks amazing, we’d like to highlight the type she used for the descriptions on her thumbnails: it’s small, stylish, yet still readable. Many designers are afraid of small font sizes, but with the right type, going small can create a chic effect without affecting usability or accessibility.

Since minimalism is always in style, you can’t go wrong with a stripped-down UX/UI portfolio, like Tamera’s. She utilized her architectural design experience to build a highly effective portfolio home page, using UXfolio’s Nominee template. The plain white background leads our attention to the pops of colors in the designs on her case study thumbnails, which is always the goal in a UX portfolio. Under the thumbnails, she writes quickfire summaries of the projects, including her role and the product profile. Like a true professional, she keeps everything short and sweet, luring you into opening a project to see more.

Madison Green

Madison mixes various colors in her portfolio – green, blue, lilac, and red – yet it looks coherent. That’s because she uses similar, dusty shades of each color. And just like that, without even reading a word, we know she has an eye for design. She features four case studies on her home page, each represented by consistently designed thumbnails, a short title, and the right amount of description. Before even opening the project, we learn what her role was and what was the project scope. So, this is an excellent example of great UX meeting good taste.

Julia Lauren

The best word to describe Julia’s portfolio is “cozy”. There’s something about a beige color palette that’s immediately comforting. These vibes are further strengthened by her portrait, which shows her with a beautiful, welcoming style. The only time you should feature your portrait as prominently on your home page as Julia does, is if you have a professional portrait that matches the color palette of your portfolio. Otherwise, it results in a tacky, resume-ish look, that’s not ideal for a designer. The rest of Julia’s portfolio is also exemplary. Take for example, how she ties her case study thumbnails together by using matching, soft gradients for their backgrounds.

We hear many stories of researchers struggling with their UX research portfolio . Saba shows you how to tackle this challenge. Instead of going with the usual serious look, she created a playful portfolio, using bright colors and a handful of matching emojis. Emphasis on matching. This look works for Saba because the emojis on her project thumbnails are from the same source, and the colors she uses on her backgrounds are in perfect harmony.

Benny’s portfolio is clean and professional. He saves his introduction to his About page to pull our attention toward the projects. That’s how we know we’re looking at a senior UXer’s portfolio. Experienced designers know that in UX, case studies get you the job. The reason is simple: case studies showcase your UX skills and process in action, underpinned with examples. Therefore, as our research revealed, most design leads go for case studies right away when opening a portfolio. Benny understands this, and he crafted this stunning, consistent portfolio accordingly.

Otilia Pandelea

Otilia made her portfolio unique by using a stunning font pairing: Poppins with IBM Plex Mono. This pairing and the harmonious color story look wonderful throughout the entire portfolio. Her about page, with custom graphics, is another highlight. We love the two lists: one about her goals and another about her frustrations. It’s new. It’s fresh. Also, the two lists balance each other perfectly and make us feel in tune with her.

With positive emojis in her bio and colorful project thumbnails, Ellen brings warmness to this otherwise strict and minimal template. By using large typography under her thumbnails, she drives attention to the copy, which describes each project in a concise style. Ellen’s Neurotime case study is also featured on our showcase since it’s the textbook example of how it should be done: clear structure, plenty of visuals, and descriptive but not overlong. She uses UXfolio’s built-in device mockups to present her examples, ensuring that the case study looks visually consistent.

It’s rarer and rarer to find serif fonts in UX design portfolios. Amanda doesn’t feature them heavily either, but she found a way to include a stunning one – Cormorant – in her hero section in a very tasteful way: using it only for her name and matching it with a simple sans serif font. This creates a sleek, slightly serious, and very professional look that’s underpinned by the rest of her portfolio’s aesthetic choices, such as the solid-color thumbnail backgrounds. She did an excellent job with the case study titles as well, as they provide concise yet intriguing descriptions about the products in question.

Takeaways from the best UX portfolios

Now that you’ve seen some of the best UX/UI portfolios out there, you’ve probably realized that they share many similarities. That’s because they use a portfolio formula that works; a structure which the industry is familiar and comfortable with:

Your home page is your visitors’ first touchpoint with your portfolio. It’s the starting point and the first impression you make. Therefore, it has to

• look great -> so your visitors want to see more.
• help with orientation -> make it easy for them to see more.

Content on your home page:

• Occupation/title,
• Designer statement,
• Links/thumbnails to case studies,
• Navigation (to various pages, like About me, Resume, and Contact).

Case study thumbnails

All things considered, your thumbnails are the most important part of your portfolio’s home page. Even more important than your navigation, for example. If you think about it, the point of a portfolio is to showcase your skills and process through case studies. Therefore, you need to get your visitors to open your case studies. The best way to do this is by creating enticing case study thumbnails and featuring them right on your home page.

The 4 golden rules of case study thumbnails:

• Your thumbnails must look good individually and together since they’ll be laid out close to each other.
• Use the same device mockup style for every thumbnail.
• Make sure that the thumbnails’ backgrounds are identical or harmonizing.
• The thumbnails have to match the home page, not the case study.

UX case studies

We all know that UX goes beyond pretty screens. Therefore it’s understandable that UX leads and recruiters want to see your approach and process. And through case studies, you can show it to them. Great case studies combine the following ingredients:

• Logical thought processes.
• Communication,
• Ability to work independently,
• Decision-making based on research and data,
• Ability to learn from mistakes, and
• Problem-solving.
• Design process.
• Knowledge of UX methods and their application.
• Openness to feedback.
• Desire to improve.

Nice-to-haves in a UX portfolio

While your home page and case studies are the most important elements of your portfolio, you should take it a step further. Adding pages like About/Bio, Contact, UX designer resumé , and social links can make your portfolio more usable, revealing, and personal.

How to showcase skills in your UX portfolio?

Our job at UXfolio includes talking to world-renowned design leaders to find out what they’re looking for in portfolios. We had to pleasure of talking to some of the most innovative and influential UX designers in the industry, such as

• Design Spring inventor Jake Knapp ,
• behavioral scientist Susan Weinschenk ,
• UX industry veteran Jared Spool , and
• InVision lead designer Pablo Stanley .

They all mentioned that the best UX portfolios show the design process and decisions. Of course the final design is important too, but they want to see how you’ve arrived there. They want you to explain your decisions and to tell why you decided to go with those specific solutions.You need to share design stories. Present your design process step-by-step, from the beginning to the end.

Tell your design story with UXfolio!

In case you need a tool to help build your portfolio quickly and easily, we made a great one: UXfolio . We created it specifically for UX professionals, so it’s packed with powerful features that’ll help you through the portfolio-building process. These features include text ideas and guiding questions for copywriting, prototype embedding, scrollable mockups, galleries, statistics section and many, many more. Give it a try!

How to Craft an Amazing UX Design Portfolio

If you want to get started in UX design , you are 100% guaranteed to need an amazing UX design portfolio in order to land that first role.

And even if you’ve already got experience in the field, it’s important to keep your portfolio polished and up-to-date.

As a UX recruiter, my role involves not just identifying and developing tech talent, but also following the industry closely; going to events, workshops, and conferences to make sure I’m in a strong position to connect the dots and successfully match companies with perfect-fit employees.

Through the conversations I have day-to-day, I’ve managed to put together a clear picture of the industry as it stands and what the expectations are for all levels of UX designer, from absolute beginners to senior UXers and UX directors.

One big aspect of my role is making sure that the candidates I work with are amazing at showcasing their skills, experience, and past achievements. One thing I get asked over and over again is, “Where should I begin with creating my portfolio? What’s the standard? How can I make it better?”

So, I’m going to share the advice that I frequently give out to candidates I work with, be it a beginner, mid-level or senior UX designer. I’ll be explaining why your portfolio is so important, what to include, where to host it, how much to include, and answering lots of other common questions. Select any of the topics from the list below to jump straight to it.

• Is a UX design portfolio really necessary?
• What is the purpose of your UX portfolio?
• What should you put in your UX portfolio?

UX portfolio tips for beginners and juniors

Ux portfolio tips for seniors and managers, presentation tips for your ux portfolio.

• Should UX researchers also create a portfolio?
• Should you use video in your UX portfolio?
• How many projects should you showcase in your UX portfolio?
• How should you test your UX portfolio?
• How do you deal with NDAs when building a UX portfolio?
• Can you build a portfolio with no experience in UX design?
• Where should you host your UX design portfolio?
• Where can you find UX design portfolio inspiration?
• FAQ about how to make a UX design portfolio

If you’re more of an audiovisual learner, check out the following video. UX designer Dee Scarano walks through her top tips for creating a winning UX design portfolio.

1. Is a UX design portfolio really necessary?

Let’s put it this way; in an industry where education and previous experience is not strictly a prerequisite to landing your dream role, a UX design portfolio is arguably even more important than your CV. It acts as a meet and greet before the hiring manager actually gets to meet you.

Times have changed, and the number of UX vacancies is increasing year on year, but with that, there are more UX designers in the market. So, you need to differentiate yourself somehow, and for that you can’t just rely on your CV.

Compared to 10 years ago, many companies know intricate characteristics they are looking for in a new hire, so it’s vital you show them you meet their needs. If you don’t I can assure you someone else will. It can mean the difference between instant rejection or getting called to come in for an interview.

As well as core UX roles, there are a number of hybrid roles which require more than just UX skills so this is the perfect opportunity to showcase that you’ve worked on different parts of a project, e.g. UI design , strategic decision-making, or overseeing the web development.

Your portfolio is also an opportunity to showcase some of your personality. In an age where there is more emphasis on hiring people who match the culture of the business, a portfolio is a perfect opportunity to show that you’re a cultural fit. It’s much harder to get your personality across on a CV given that approximately 99% of CVs follow the same format.

2. What is the purpose of your UX portfolio?

Here is my take on it. A good portfolio indicates, in short, that this person has taken time to represent themselves in the best possible light, and they’re clued up enough to showcase their most relevant work in an aesthetic and logical way.

It should define who you are, what you can do, and what part of UX you specialize in. Remember: don’t rely on your CV for this. According to statistics, recruiters only spend 6 seconds looking at your CV.

They will scan four key areas: your name, current position, previous position, and education. In a nutshell, your CV is boring. Your portfolio need not be.

Your portfolio should show cultural suitability for the company where you are applying. Don’t be afraid to add a touch of character or your own style to your portfolio. It’s your chance to wow the hiring manager and demonstrate that you stand out from the crowd.

3. What should you put in your UX portfolio?

Your portfolio content will vary.

This depends on your seniority ( scroll down for specific tips on beginner vs senior portfolios ), the companies you want to work for, the country you live in (as different countries have different market expectations), and of course, whose advice you listen to! These will all play a massive part in what you produce.

The single most important thing you can do to make sure your UX portfolio grabs attention, regardless of your level, is this: show process.

Show you can do the graft and hard work that comes before the pretty pictures.

For example, check out the way that UX designer and CareerFoundry graduate Michelle Lock shows her work in her Fitted app case study . Rather than just showing us the polished designs, she includes information and pictures of user flows, sketches and wireframes, moodboards, and the product style guide.

As you can see from just this one example, a strong UX portfolio shows your process . In addition, it’s important to give context for each project you feature. For each project in a UX portfolio, I expect to see:

• The problem
• Who you worked with
• What tools you used
• Discovery phases (how did you go about solving the problem)
• The process you used to overcome the problem: lo-hi wireframes , prototypes, sketches, personas, user journeys, and research
• The final outcome (both of your work, and what happened after it was handed over, e.g. to a UI designer or developer!)

If someone walked in off the street, with no background in UX, your process should make sense to them—just like your high school chemistry notes would.

I also like to see storytelling—a plot development in the UX portfolio. In between each part of your process, explain why you went onto the next step of the process—did you run out of time? Did you feel your data was statistically significant? This will help the hiring manager get inside your mind and understand how you approach problems.

If you didn’t create any UI solutions, I recommend that you still show the final outcome in your portfolio but make it clear that it wasn’t your work. In my experience, companies like to see how your work translated into the final solution.

This is especially true if the company hiring isn’t very UX mature. They might not be able to imagine how UX translates into an end product. As we all know you don’t look on a website and say “My, look at that UX!! ” but you do say “Oh look, beautiful graphics!”

Showing how UX translates into products can help you educate companies around the importance of having a UX designer and not just a user-centered UI designer .

If you are going for a hybrid role, you don’t want your portfolio to be just pixel-perfect and overly visual, as this will be less relevant compared to other candidates who have submitted a more rounded portfolio inclusive of user-centered design (UCD) methodologies and practice.

However, if your biggest talent lies in visuals and that’s where your passion is, perhaps you should stick with that rather than diluting yourself as a part-time UXer, hosting reluctant user interviews and creating personas.

Now I want to quickly break down some differences in portfolios for junior and  senior UX designers.

4. Top tips for your UX portfolio

As a new UX designer , it’s only natural that you won’t have vast quantities of work to show in your portfolio, so instead you need to find a unique angle to stand out. Personally, when I look through junior portfolios I like to see some personality in there, even if there are only a handful of projects.

Ways to inject personality include adding any personal projects you have attempted, and talking the reader through how you went from an idea to a finished solution. Even if it was a complete failure or it was part of your UX design course rather than a paid gig, show it!

For me, failing but being humble around the fact you know that you can improve shows determination, grit, and motivation. From multiple conversations with hiring managers that I’ve had on the topic of junior UX portfolios, I can tell you that they’re not expecting examples of perfect process-driven work, they want to see personality and if you’ll be a good fit culturally. The rest you can learn on the job!

These can vary depending on what type of work you’ve been doing, either hands-on or hands-off. If you’ve been in a managerial hands-off role, I personally don’t think there is any point in you sharing work from years ago when you were more hands-on.

I think a much better option is to show examples of your team’s work on different projects. Show examples of how you set the strategy, delegated the tasks, mention whether you had to do some hands-on work or not, and the final outcomes of projects. Did you achieve great ROI for the client or better user experience for customers? Show some data to back this up.

If you’ve mentored a junior UX practitioner, show examples of their work before you mentored them and their work currently. This is a great indication to your future employer that you can make a deep impact within an organization and team.

Even if you are not interested in UI or graphic design, I am firm believer a visually-pleasing portfolio is important! It’s just good sense.

Pay attention to color palette and fonts—create and follow your own personal mini style guide, i.e make sure that page 3 matches with page 10. It could be the detail that gets people admiring and sharing your work, resulting in deeper exposure in the UX market. Remember, people are visual animals.

For example, if you were to go onto a travel website and the UX was great, but the visual elements were really inconsistent and boring, you’d probably leave the site. Don’t let this happen to your portfolio site.

Making it visually pleasing will show the hiring manager that you pay attention to small detail. No harm can be done from making your portfolio look nice.

Make sure to annotate your portfolio, but don’t make it too text heavy as this will bore the reader and disengage them.

Another way to boost engagement is my next tip, and something I have been experimenting with lately!

5. Should UX researchers also create a portfolio?

I’ve been asked this quite a lot. If your area of expertise is user research , you might struggle to create a portfolio of polished visual designs. Does that mean you don’t need to create a portfolio?

Previously, I wasn’t 100% sure on this, but now my answer is that you definitely should create a portfolio!

As we know first impressions are what matter in a hiring situation, and that’s probably why so many researchers try to build their portfolios with examples of UI but this is the wrong way to do it.

If you’re a UX researcher, you don’t design screens, so don’t worry about putting them in your portfolio. Show the impact you had on a project!

While the project may not follow the exact same pattern, there are still key things a hiring manager wants to see. For example;

• Who the client is
• The problem you were brought in to work on
• Your approach
• The results (in a clear format)
• What this meant for the rest of the project

And even if you’re a researcher and visuals aren’t your strong point, please don’t make this fact blatantly obvious with terrible design! Here’s a helpful, in-depth guide to creating a portfolio as a UX researcher.

6. Should you use video in your UX portfolio?

Recently, I started interviewing UX practitioners in the industry on camera about interesting topics. It’s a great way to get information across in an engaging way. So how can you use this in your portfolio?

There are lots of possibilities. You could show a video of yourself interacting with users during user testing, or show yourself or a user happily demonstrating the end product. Another way could be for you to have a short 10 to 20 second video of you introducing your website and your working style.

There is something very engaging about video, and let’s face it—you need to do all you can to make the viewer engaged! Give them a reason to stay around and view your work.

The great thing is that nowadays almost everyone has a decent video recorder on their phone, so whenever you’re working on something interesting you should try and make a short video just in case. You can even edit clips into a video montage.

7. How many projects should you showcase in your UX portfolio?

I would advise showing a maximum of three examples in your UX portfolio. If you’re a junior, even one or two projects is enough. Choose projects which you’ve had the most impact on, and show work which is clearly laid out.

If you’re reading this and have a few years’ experience, you’re probably thinking, “but I have so much work to show.” You need to think of a portfolio as a selling tool, it’s to sell your services to a certain company. If you just show everything, rather than curating your hottest work, it could disadvantage you.

You have to think of a portfolio as you dangling the carrot waiting for the hiring manager to take a bite. Once you have an interview, you can mention other projects you’ve worked on.

If you’re passive in the market and only want to specialize in one sector or would like to work in one particular sector, it would be a good idea to show a project that you’ve worked on in that sector.

If by chance the project you worked on in the specific sector wasn’t your best or most-detailed, still include it as it shows you have an interest in this area and some experience. As UX has grown, so has the number of candidates meaning companies have more pick. That’s why you might see on job specs, e.g. “must have experience in financial services.”

f you haven’t worked on a sector that you’re targeting, try including some personal projects in that area or write a killer cover letter—something you can read more about in our guide to writing a UX cover letter .

8. How should you test your UX portfolio?

Hiring managers usually have a very limited time to look through portfolios. You should have a portfolio that allows a manager to look through your work in 30 to 60 seconds and know what projects you’ve worked on, get inside your mind, and know how you solve problems.

That’s why I always recommend trying some simple user testing techniques. Get some volunteers, these can be a partner, friends or family, and get them to look at your portfolio and complete small tasks or hunt for crucial information. Then you can define and tweak the content to get to the desired goal.

Having the right information readily available shows your potential employer that you’ll be capable when it comes to presenting to stakeholders, as well as working on information architecture if it’s part of your job!

Some of my best tips to get your portfolio concise and to the point:

• Structure your portfolio clearly, with clear navigation to the projects, sub-headings, and a clearly defined process.
• Get rid of anything in the portfolio which doesn’t represent your best work. Have one example for each part of the process.
• Include a clear overview so people know exactly what the project was about, without having to read through the whole project to find out.
• Cover different bases. For example team leaders, specialist recruiters, project managers, and internal recruiters all have their own agendas and different checklists. A UX team lead may be looking for process, whereas an internal recruiter will want to see how much experience you have. Tailor your portfolio for all audiences.

Tip: When you test your portfolio, test it on different people and give them different goals, e.g. estimate how many years of experience I have or find a statistic that proves the ROI of my project.

9. How do you deal with NDAs when building a UX portfolio?

Firstly I’d like to say the following are only suggestions and I would always advise asking the client first. But, put yourself in the shoes of your potential employer. Would you really hire someone without any evidence of their skills, process, and experience? There’s a risk even for referred or recommended candidates because these can be biased, so having evidence of your work is key.

The first option could be to anonymize all the data from the project but come up with what the problem was, your process, and final outcomes. Here, make the text generic—but specific enough for the hiring manager to get an understanding of what you do.

My advice to graduates and junior UX designers coming onto the market is to take a role in which you can guarantee that you’ll be able to show the work you produce because without any work to show, finding a role afterwards can be tricky. You have to take your first role in UX with your next role in mind, so having work to show can be the stepping stone to greater things.

10. Can you build a portfolio with no experience in UX design?

As a recruiter I have the privilege to help people  switch to UX from other careers. They typically want to know how they can get a portfolio which will stand up in an interview. I won’t lie—this can be difficult with a lack of commercial UX experience.

However, it is possible to demonstrate skills and attributes which are important for any UX practitioner. For example research and the methodology used to get to a solution: testing , initial drafts, wireframes , personas , prototypes, evaluations etc. Here are some ways you can start to build a portfolio if you have no background in UX:

1) Take a course: Taking a UX course is a great way to build up your portfolio because you will learn key UX principles and put these into practice. Find out how to pick a program here: What to look for in a UX design certification .

2) Volunteer: Volunteering for a charity/non-profit is another awesome way to build experience and help shape a portfolio because not only are you working on a live project, but will get exposure to real users. This shows amazing initiative and can help to show a good team spirit.

3) Hackathons: Hackathons are really inspiring —and not just for coders! A hackathon is usually a one- or two-daylong competition where software programmers, developers, UX designers, UI designers, etc. come together to design something. These can help you build a portfolio in a short space of time, as well as learning from inspirational people and growing your network.

11. Where should you host your UX design portfolio?

My top tip is always to create a personal website, even if you have to pay a small annual fee. Trust me, it’s a wise investment and will pay for itself.

Websites win for me because they are easier to remember (if you have a catchy domain name—such as yourname.com), people can drop it into conversations, and you don’t need to keep sending over PDF files, saving time which can be all the difference if you’re looking for contract work.

Websites can also show more than just your work, with an about me page, blogs, videos etc. As I’ve said a few times now—showing personality is crucial in an interview process especially if you’re junior with not a lot of work to show.

Websites are fantastic to create a brand. Whoever you work for, you are a brand. You’re a self brand. You are such-and-such at a certain company. Having a website is an opportunity for you to improve your profile within the UX community. If you’re good with SEO, it can even help people to find you.

On the other hand, one of the benefits of having a PDF is that you can constantly tailor what you send over. My advice in that case would be to have a website of your best 2 to 3 projects and build an additional customized PDF if you’re targeting a certain sector/company.

Other websites which are useful are Behance and Dribbble , but personally I actually, maybe controversially, don’t recommend worrying too much about them.

Here are 9 of the best free websites for your UX/UI portfolio . This should give you a good starting point.

12. Where can you find UX design portfolio inspiration?

If you’re looking for some portfolio inspiration, I recommend you take a look at this breakdown of the very best UX design portfolios currently out there . You might also like to see the kind of portfolios that CareerFoundry UX design graduates produce —and in the video below you can watch a senior UX designer’s review of a recent graduate’s portfolio. Our friends over at UX Collective have also put together an extensive list of innovative UX design portfolios that’s worth browsing.

13. Conclusion

Ultimately, the number one way to advance your career in UX is to have a killer UX portfolio where you present yourself in the best possible light. Even senior designers need to prove what they can do. There should be no excuses to not having a portfolio, so on that note: go and create something amazing!

Further exploration

• How and when to ask for a raise (salary negotiation for designers)
• How to build amazing case studies for your UX design portfolio
• How to create a UX writing portfolio
• How to turn your passion into a design project—webinar recording

14. Frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to make a UX design portfolio

1. How do I create a UX portfolio?

Creating a UX portfolio involves showcasing your best work through carefully selected projects with comprehensive case studies. Provide context and storytelling, organize your portfolio intuitively, focus on visual presentation, highlight your process and skills, and include results and impact to make your portfolio compelling and informative.

2. How do I start a UX portfolio for beginners?

Beginners can start a UX portfolio by working on personal projects or volunteering. Treat these projects as real-world scenarios and create case studies that explain the problem, approach, and solutions. Seek feedback from mentors and peers, iterate based on suggestions, and continuously improve your portfolio as you gain practical experience and refine your design skills.

3. What goes in a UX design portfolio?

A UX design portfolio should include project case studies that demonstrate your design process, problem-solving abilities, and outcomes. It should showcase visual examples such as screenshots or videos to highlight your visual design skills. Design artifacts like personas, user journey maps, and information architecture diagrams can provide insights into your understanding of user-centered design.

Additionally, mention your skills and tools relevant to UX design and include an about section with contact information to give viewers a sense of your background and expertise.

4. Where can I make a UX design portfolio?

There are various platforms where you can create a UX design portfolio. Popular options include website builders like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace, which provide customizable templates and hosting services.

You can also use dedicated portfolio platforms like Behance, Dribbble, or UXfolio, which are specifically tailored for showcasing design work. Choose a platform that aligns with your needs in terms of design flexibility, ease of use, and the ability to showcase your portfolio effectively.

Product Design (UX/UI) Bundle and save

User Research New

Content Design

UX Design Fundamentals

Software and Coding Fundamentals for UX

• UX training for teams
• Hire our alumni
• Student Stories
• State of UX Hiring Report 2024
• Our mission
• Advisory Council

Education for every phase of your UX career

Professional Diploma

Learn the full user experience (UX) process from research to interaction design to prototyping.

Combine the UX Diploma with the UI Certificate to pursue a career as a product designer.

Professional Certificates

Learn how to plan, execute, analyse and communicate user research effectively.

Master content design and UX writing principles, from tone and style to writing for interfaces.

Understand the fundamentals of UI elements and design systems, as well as the role of UI in UX.

Short Courses

Gain a solid foundation in the philosophy, principles and methods of user experience design.

Learn the essentials of software development so you can work more effectively with developers.

Give your team the skills, knowledge and mindset to create great digital products.

Join our hiring programme and access our list of certified professionals.

Learn about our mission to set the global standard in UX education.

Meet our leadership team with UX and education expertise.

Members of the council connect us to the wider UX industry.

Our team are available to answer any of your questions.

Fresh insights from experts, alumni and the wider design community.

Success stories from our course alumni building thriving careers.

Discover a wealth of UX expertise on our YouTube channel.

Latest industry insights. A practical guide to landing a job in UX.

How to create a UX portfolio without experience: 5 tried-and-tested ways to find UX projects

Free course: Introduction to UX Design

What is UX? Why has it become so important? Could it be a career for you? Learn the answers, and more, with a free 7-lesson video course.

It’s one of the biggest challenges new UX designers face: building a UX portfolio before you’ve got any on-the-job experience. 

Fortunately, there are opportunities everywhere to apply your UX skills—you don’t need to wait til you’re hired. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to find projects for your first UX portfolio . 

But before we do that, let’s recap on what your UX portfolio should demonstrate. This will help you when it comes to completing and showcasing your projects.

What goes into your UX portfolio, and what should your portfolio demonstrate?

Your UX portfolio is a website that showcases some of your best UX project work. It should demonstrate 3 main things:

• Key UX hard skills such as user research, wireframing and prototyping
• Your understanding and application of the UX design process
• How you think and problem-solve as a designer

You can learn all about what a UX portfolio is, why it’s important, and what it should include in our complete guide to UX portfolios . But, in a nutshell, your UX portfolio should contain an “About” page, contact details and, most importantly, examples of your work. Your work is presented in the form of case studies. 

[GET CERTIFIED IN UX]

What is a UX case study?

A UX case study tells the story of a design project you worked on . It outlines your design process from A to Z, detailing the problem you set out to solve, the users you were solving it for, the methods and processes you used, and the final solution. 

Case studies include a mixture of text and visuals. As you explain your process, you can illustrate each step with screenshots, photos, videos, wireframes and prototypes, data and quotes. 

UX case studies are the heart of your portfolio. They show employers that you’ve got the necessary skills to work as a UX designer. But how are you supposed to create UX case studies if you haven’t yet worked on any UX projects?

Worry not. Here are 5 tried-and-tested ways to gain valuable UX experience and build case studies for your portfolio.

5 Ways to find projects for your UX portfolio without experience

1. conduct an unsolicited redesign.

An unsolicited redesign is where you take an existing product, service or feature and voluntarily redesign it—without being asked to do so. You’re not working on behalf of a company or client, and your solutions won’t be used. 

However, you do get to apply your UX design skills to a real product. Excellent material for your portfolio!

How to conduct an unsolicited redesign

To conduct an unsolicited redesign, you first need to identify a UX problem within an existing product. 

Think about the apps and websites you use on a regular basis. Are you constantly frustrated with your banking app? Did you recently abandon a full online shopping cart because the checkout process was so cumbersome? Could the task of finding new music on your favourite streaming platform be improved in some way?

Once you start looking for those UX problems, you’ll notice them everywhere. Pick one you fancy tackling and define the scope of the project. This could be “streamlining the checkout process on the ASOS website” or “improving the profile-building feature on the Bumble dating app”. 

From there, follow the entire UX process , starting with user research and moving right through to final designs. By the end, you’ll have a fully-fledged project to showcase in your portfolio. 

Unsolicited redesign examples

To help you with your own unsolicited redesign, here are some examples of what other designers have done:

• Carolina Niglio’s unsolicited redesign of the PayPal app
• Jeff Shibasaki’s unsolicited redesign of the Colgate website
• Daniel Lopes’ Tinder redesign
• Jason Yuan’s unsolicited redesign of Apple Music

Tips for completing a successful unsolicited redesign

Treat your unsolicited redesign like a real UX project. Don’t be tempted to cut corners; the aim is to apply your skills as practically as possible. Here are some tips to ensure your unsolicited redesign is a success:

• Recruit real people for things like user research and testing. Involve friends and family who are familiar with the product you’re redesigning, or advertise in Facebook groups
• Document everything along the way, ready to be featured in your portfolio case study
• When writing up your case study, clearly state that it’s an unsolicited redesign
• Feature “before” and “after” comparisons to show how your redesign has improved the existing product

Unsolicited redesigns demonstrate exactly how you’d approach a real client project—and they show that you’re a proactive and resourceful designer. A great impression to make in your UX portfolio.

2. Design to fix a real user problem 

This is similar to an unsolicited redesign, except the product doesn’t actually exist yet—you’re going to conceptualise and design it from scratch. You might hear this referred to as a fictitious UX project. 

The main difference between an unsolicited redesign and the “fictitious project” approach is that you’re starting with an unsolved user problem rather than improving an existing design. The scope for creativity is therefore a lot broader.

How to complete a fictitious UX project

To complete your fictitious UX project, you first need to give yourself a design brief. This means identifying a user problem that doesn’t seem to have an existing solution. 

Again, you’ll need to view the world through your UX lens in order to spot those unsolved problems. Perhaps you find yourself in a state of confusion whenever it comes to recycling your household rubbish. Wouldn’t it be great if you had an app that could help you identify the right bin for different types of waste? 

Maybe you wish there was an easier way to meet people when you go travelling, or to curate playlists that match the tempo of your movement while you’re working out. Wherever there’s a user problem, there’s a UX design project just waiting to happen!

Once you’ve identified your UX problem, all the usual rules apply. Go through the UX process from start to finish, documenting all your research, early ideations, and final designs. 

Fictitious UX project examples

Before embarking on your own fictitious project, see how other designers have done it. Here are some noteworthy case studies to inspire you:

• UX Design Institute graduate Anca Dobrea’s Plan Shop Cook app , inspired by Anca’s own experience with the Joe Wicks Body Coach programme
• Cezary Ołowski ’s 360° photo app design: Part 1 (defining the project scope, research and user personas) and Part 2 (sitemaps and wireframes)

Tips for an effective fictitious UX project

Fictitious UX projects can be overwhelming as there’s so much room for creativity. Here’s how to make it work:

• Focus on applying the UX design process—not on coming up with the most innovative, groundbreaking idea. It doesn’t matter if there is actually a solution out there somewhere; the most important point is that you’re designing your own solution from scratch
• As with the unsolicited redesign, make it clear that your case study is based on a fictitious UX project
• Share how your own experiences inspired your fictitious project. This makes for interesting reading in your portfolio case study

If you’re struggling to come up with your own design challenge, why not try a design challenge generator? Sites like Sharpen Design , Briefz , and What Should I Design? are great sources of UX inspiration. 

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

[UX DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS COURSE]

3. Volunteer your UX skills for free

There are plenty of organisations out there who could benefit from a UX designer but don’t have the funds to hire one. If you’ve got the time, volunteering is a great way to use your UX skills and gain real-world experience.

Where to find UX volunteering opportunities

One way to find UX volunteering opportunities is through dedicated websites and portals such as:

• VolunteerMatch

You can also send out speculative applications. Research local non-profits or large-scale initiatives you’re interested in and familiarise yourself with their work. Then send an email to introduce yourself and the skills you can offer. Be ready to pitch ideas for how you might help them in case they want specifics. 

Once you’ve landed a volunteering gig, you should have lots of material for your UX portfolio. As always, document everything you work on so you can turn it into a coherent case study.

UX volunteering case study examples

Volunteering isn’t just for entry-level designers; many senior UXers offer their skills pro-bono as a way of giving back. If you’re curious about how a UX volunteering case study might look, here are some examples:

• Nampetch Peetinavasakul’s UX/UI volunteering experience with Reviv
• Clayton Hopkins’ pro bono web design project for DullesJustice.org

How to make the most of your UX volunteering gig

Not only is it nice to offer your skills for a good cause—you’ll learn a lot from the experience, too. Here’s how to make the most of your UX volunteering gig:

• If possible, get involved in a cause that you genuinely care about. This will make it easier to talk about your UX work and create an interesting case study
• Ask for a testimonial from the people you work with; this will look great on your portfolio website

You can learn more about how volunteering can help you build your UX portfolio in this guide .

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

4. Take a UX design course

If you want a structured approach to learning UX design and creating a professional portfolio, consider a UX design course.

Many UX courses include project work in the curriculum, and some will even guide you through the portfolio-building process. Depending on the setup, you may also have access to mentors or industry professionals who can review your project work and give feedback. 

Even without all the extras, a UX course with a project-based syllabus provides an excellent starting point for your portfolio. You’ll learn the UX process from start to finish, and can build out your first UX case study as you go.

Choosing a UX design course

There are several factors to consider when choosing a UX design course. Think about the following:

• Do you want to study flexibly online, or attend in-person classes?
• How much time can you dedicate to a UX course?
• What’s your budget?
• Should you choose a university credit-rated UX program?
• How practical is the curriculum?

Do plenty of research before signing up—including taking a look at what UX course graduates have to say about their experience .

UX portfolio examples from course graduates

If you’re wondering how your portfolio might look if you build it as part of a UX course, check out these portfolios created by graduates of the UX Design Institute:

• Veronica Praml’s UX research and design portfolio
• Alexis’ product design portfolio
• Adam Carbeck’s UI/UX portfolio

For more inspiration, take a look at our complete round-up of the best UX graduate portfolio examples (and what we can learn from them) .

How to make the most of your UX course project work 

If you’re building your UX portfolio based solely on course work, you might have concerns about standing out. Here are some ways to ensure your UX portfolio is unique:

• Create spin-off projects and case studies. The curriculum might limit you to specific project ideas, but there’s nothing to stop you from developing those ideas into something original. If your course has you designing a dating app, why not create another case study exploring new features and improvements? 
• Treat your UX portfolio website as another project. Write a personal “About Me” section, get creative with the UI, and go the extra mile to include videos or a blog
• If you have the opportunity, ask your course instructors or fellow students for a testimonial about what kind of designer you are. This will look great on your portfolio homepage

And remember: Hiring managers ultimately want to see that you understand and can apply the UX design process. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel in order to stand out.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash  

5. Consider a UX internship

It’s not a feasible option for everyone, but if you are able to take on an unpaid (or low-paid) short-term gig, consider a UX internship.

A UX internship will have you working in-house on real design projects. Besides the obvious benefit for your UX portfolio, you’ll have the chance to shadow and learn from experienced UX designers—and get your first taste of working on a design team. 

Where to find UX internships

Searching for a UX internship is much like searching for a job. You can use both generic job boards and UX-specific sites, including:

• Dribbble Jobs
• UX Jobs Board

As with volunteering, prioritise finding an internship with a company or brand you’re interested in. With that said, it’s important to be flexible—you can start your search with your “top pick” companies, and then cast the net wider later on. 

UX internship case studies

The best way to learn about UX internships (and to weigh up if it’s something for you) is to hear from those who have first-hand experience. Here are some UXers who have shared their internship stories:

• My experience as a UX intern at Visma by Amanda Lundius Mörck
• What I learned from my UX internship at the Home Depot by Tony Jin (now working at Google)
• My experience as a UX design intern at Shopify by Helga Jiang (now working at Facebook)

Tips for a successful UX internship

Before you take on a UX internship, it’s important to ensure that you’re in line for a truly valuable experience. Here’s how to get the best out of your UX internship:

• Before you start, get together with your future supervisor to establish clear responsibilities and goals. What exactly will you work on while you’re there? What kind of experience can you expect to gain? This will help to avoid a situation where you’re working for free but not actually getting what you want from the experience
• If you have a good rapport with your supervisor or teammates, ask for their feedback on your UX portfolio. Having a senior UXer review your project case study will help to ensure you’re ticking all the boxes
• Reflect on your internship in your portfolio—not just in terms of how you applied the UX process, but also what you learned about cross-team collaboration and the role of UX within a business

As you can see, there are many ways you can build out your portfolio, long before you’ve landed your first UX job . So what’s next? Try some (or all) of the strategies we’ve shared, and follow this practical step-by-step guide on how to build your UX portfolio from scratch .

• UX Portfolios

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get the best UX insights and career advice direct to your inbox each month.

Thanks for subscribing to our newsletter

You'll now get the best career advice, industry insights and UX community content, direct to your inbox every month.

Upcoming courses

Professional diploma in ux design.

Learn the full UX process, from research to design to prototyping.

Professional Certificate in UI Design

Master key concepts and techniques of UI design.

Certificate in Software and Coding Fundamentals for UX

Collaborate effectively with software developers.

Certificate in UX Design Fundamentals

Get a comprehensive introduction to UX design.

Professional Certificate in Content Design

Learn the skills you need to start a career in content design.

Professional Certificate in User Research

Master the research skills that make UX professionals so valuable.

Upcoming course

Build your UX career with a globally-recognised, industry-approved certification. Get the mindset, the skills and the confidence of UX designers.

You may also like

From project management to UX: Jenny Björkman’s career-change with the UX Design Institute

What you should look for in a product design course in 2024

What to look for in a UX research course in 2024

Build your UX career with a globally recognised, industry-approved qualification. Get the mindset, the confidence and the skills that make UX designers so valuable.

8 October 2024

5 Steps to Creating a UX-Design Portfolio

August 4, 2019 2019-08-04

• Email article
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Twitter

In This Article:

Introduction, what hiring managers are looking for, putting it together, navigating roadblocks.

The word “designer” can mean many different things and a designer role comes with many possible skills and responsibilities. UX-design portfolios showcase who their owners are: the areas in which they specialize, their strengths, their processes, and their design styles.

In this article, I refer to a ‘designer’ as anyone who designs one or several components of the user experience — interaction flows, discrete interface elements, visuals, or omnichannel journeys, whether on a desktop, a touchscreen, or on some other device.

Many of our top 10 recommendations for UX-research portfolios also apply to design portfolios. A common misconception about design portfolios is that they are only made up of final UI designs and screenshots. This article will guide you through the steps of creating a UX-design portfolio that encompasses your entire UX process and not just the shiny artifacts.

As part of our current research on user-experience careers , we surveyed 204 UX professionals in charge of hiring about what they look for in a portfolio. Here are some things they mentioned:

• “Show me how you started with an opportunity and produced real value for a user and the organization.”
• “I’m curious to know what isn’t in the design and why, just as much as I’d like to know why elements made it in.”
• “Don’t just show me the finished product. I want to see the messy process and all the work and research that was put in to land on that shiny polished design. Tell me the problem you were trying to solve, your role, any constraints, project timeline, changes from iteration to iteration and how the research informed the design.”

The “users” of your portfolio will be hiring managers, recruiters, or fellow UX professionals, so your portfolio must appeal to these different groups of people. Think about which capabilities you want to showcase and how each group will understand this information. Very rarely will hiring managers take the time to read your entire portfolio word for word — which is one reason why your portfolio should be scannable and not contain unnecessary detail.

Before designing your portfolio, prioritize what you want to communicate. What are the top three things about you and your work that a reader of your portfolio should take away? Revisit this question once your portfolio is completed to make sure you achieved your goal.

Step 1: Take Inventory of All Your Projects

UX professionals work on many types of projects and tasks. Therefore, it may be difficult to narrow down what to include in a portfolio. The first step is to take inventory of the projects you’ve worked on.

You’ll want to showcase your specialties through multiple types of work. To do this, consider all your projects and ask yourself the following questions:

• What am I really good at?
• Which UX activities do I really like to do?
• What differentiates me from other designers?
• On which projects did I bring the most value?
• From which projects did I learn the most?
• What interesting stories can I tell about the work that I did?

Prioritize projects that align to the work you’re looking for. When seeking a new job, tailor your project selection to the job duties you want to perform. For example, if you really enjoy prototyping, showcase projects where you created prototypes and how they benefited the ultimate outcome. You don’t want to promote work that you don’t like doing, so be sure to avoid adding in projects that don’t align with your future career goals.

Step 2: Choose 3–5 Projects as Detailed Case Studies

Quality over quantity is the best rule to follow when putting together your portfolio. Since hiring managers don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to each candidate’s portfolio, it’s best to choose a few of your best projects to showcase from your prioritized list you made in the previous step. The projects you choose should align to the work that is described in the job description.

The number of projects you include is not important per se. What’s important is that your portfolio showcases a wide variety of work and skills — so, if you had substantial, varied contributions to a small set of big projects, emphasize the many different activities that you were involved in. 

In addition to visuals for each project, create a case study that includes the following information:

• Example: Our application got negative reviews because users weren’t receiving alerts about new sales on the site. Based on the content of the reviews, we hypothesized that users were not aware that they could adjust notification settings in the application.
• Example: I was the sole UX designer on an Agile team comprised of 3 developers, a product owner, a scrum master, and a quality engineer. I was responsible for determining the overall design direction of the project, while collaborating with the rest of the team on ideation.
• Example: Usability testing showed that users did not realize that they could adjust their notification settings. We decided to design the notification settings to be more prominent in the site navigation.
• Example: We conducted additional usability testing with the same tasks and our new design, which showed an increase in findability compared to the previous round of testing. Users were able to adjust their notification settings, which gave them access to new sales alerts.
• Example: During ideation, we went through several different design concepts that ultimately did not completely satisfy user needs. One design concept that we prototyped displayed the notification settings in a modal when users logged in, but it caused frustration because people had to close it to complete their original task.
• Example: Because users were now able to turn on new-sales notifications, sales increased by 15%. Our application reviews have skewed positive and customer-satisfaction survey scores have increased.
• Example: Because of this project, we realized the importance of prototype testing for exploring new design concepts. It made us test new designs to make sure they were viable solutions before putting in development effort.

These case studies should be displayed in a way that is scannable and easy to follow. Include relevant photos and screenshots that tell the story, including early sketches, whiteboards, research documentation, or final images.

Remember, the final screenshots only tell part of the story. Hiring managers want to understand how you work and giving them a glimpse of your process will help them envision how you fit in with their teams.

Step 3: Choose Your Desired Format

Regardless of format, your portfolio should tell a story. Break up text with visuals and make a clear distinction between projects.

There are three common formats for designer portfolios:

A web-based portfolio is a website or online service that displays your work. Web-based portfolios are the most common medium for designers. Resist the urge to go overboard on a flashy template. Your content should be the main focus and your site should be easy to navigate and consume.

PDF / Slide Deck

Another popular medium for portfolios is a digital PDF or slide deck, which acts as a presentation of your projects. When creating a digital portfolio, keep a master PDF or slide deck with all of your projects included so you can hide projects depending on the job you’re applying for or the skills you want to highlight.

Physical Artifacts

Physical portfolios are more common with print designers, but you can bring physical artifacts that you use during your design process — such as sketches or paper prototypes — into an interview. Couple your physical pieces with either a web-based or PDF portfolio so that hiring managers can see your work prior to an interview.

When deciding between formats, ask yourself the following questions:

• Did the hiring manager specify a format?
• What costs are associated with this format?
• How much knowledge do I have of the software that I’ll be using?

If the answer still isn’t obvious, below are some pros and cons of the possible formats.

Step 4: Create Your Portfolio

Now that you have a plan for your projects and format, you can start putting everything together. Regardless of which format you’ve chosen, create a basic template that you’ll follow so that all of your projects look cohesive.

Step 5: Get Feedback and Iterate

Once your portfolio is created, send it to others to provide feedback. Another set of eyes on your portfolio will catch spelling or grammar errors, confusion about content, and the overall usability of your format.

As you interview with hiring managers, make note of what resonates with them and what is unclear. Then iterate on your portfolio.

As you work on new projects going forward, save any artifacts or process documents to use as future case studies in your portfolio. Your portfolio will always be a work in progress and having an efficient method for keeping track of projects will make updates simple.

“My work is under a nondisclosure agreement (NDA).”

Nondisclosure agreements are common when doing UX work — and even more so if you’re doing government work. These contracts prohibit you from displaying identifying information about the company, its users, or the project details. Restrictions can be frustrating when you’re crafting your portfolio, but there are ways to show your work without violating the NDA.

Show process images. Rather than showing the polished UI and visual designs that display company-specific information, showcase your process for these projects. Highlight communication skills like workshop facilitation or early design concepts through sketches or black-and-white wireframes.

Redact or blur out information. If you have wireframes or prototypes that you’d like to show, blur out identifying information. (Blurring is especially important for applications displaying financial or medical information.)

Make it generic. Recreate your designs using different styles. While this approach is time-consuming, it ensures that you are not using brand colors or styles that would identify the client.

“I don’t have a lot of time. What should I focus on?”

If you’re short on time but still want to make a big impact, focus on a project or two where you had to incorporate a wide variety of UX and design skills. These case studies will be in depth and will show off your versatility.

“I had great ideas/designs, but they were never implemented.”

As designers we often generate many candidate solutions for a single problem and ultimately choose only one. In this process, many great ideas are left on the cutting-room floor. As you’re writing your case studies, include candidate solutions and explain the thought process behind the designs. Hiring managers want to know that you’ll be able to navigate challenges and constraints, and you can show them that your work lives in reality instead of an ideal world.

“I’m a student.”

The first job is the hardest to get. It’s difficult to present a compelling design portfolio if all you can show for yourself is student projects. We strongly recommend having an internship in a company, so that you have at least one real-world project to show.

A key aspect of any design is the ability to deal with constraints. Student projects often have made-up constraints — including made-up users and personas — which make them uncompelling proof of your ability to design for the real world. If you’re still working on your student projects, select problems that have business relevance (i.e., will make money) and realistic constraints. If you’re already done, at least acknowledge any unrealistic elements of your student projects in your portfolio description, so that managers don’t conclude that you don’t know any better.

Portfolios will always be a part of a designer’s process. Creating a portfolio that showcases your strengths in a way that appeals to your audience will help you land your next UX-design job. The act of creating a portfolio allows you to identify your skills and achievements while reflecting on the work you want to do in the future.

When creating your UX design portfolio, remember these tips:

• Curate, curate, curate
• Show real work, even if it’s messy
• Highlight collaboration with teams
• Reflect on who you are as a designer and where you want to be

Related Courses

The one-person ux team.

Maximize your impact as the sole UX professional in your organization with these strategies

UX Deliverables

Effectively communicate ideas and findings to managers, collaborators, and other stakeholders.

Interaction

Persuasive and Emotional Design

Create delightful experiences that touch, convince, or excite your audience

Related Topics

• UX Teams UX Teams

Learn More:

Please accept marketing cookies to view the embedded video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ0TFywHdvM

UX Portfolios: What Hiring Managers Look For

UX Portfolio Updates: A New Year's Resolution

Evan Sunwall · 5 min

UX Portfolios: Preparing for Interviews

Rachel Krause · 2 min

Creating a UX Design Portfolio Case Study

Rachel Krause · 3 min

Related Articles:

Portfolios for UX Researchers: Top 10 Recommendations

Lexie Kane · 8 min

What a UX Career Looks Like Today

Rachel Krause and Maria Rosala · 5 min

UX Responsibilities in Scrum Events

Anna Kaley · 13 min

Growing in Your UX Career: Study Guide

Taylor Dykes · 4 min

User Need Statements: The ‘Define’ Stage in Design Thinking

Sarah Gibbons · 9 min

Time with Users: Set Personal and Company Goals

Jakob Nielsen · 6 min

• Conversion Optimization
• Growth Marketing
• Digital Analytics
• Brand Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• Digital Psychology
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Product Marketing
• Technical Content Marketing
• Technical Marketing
• Google Analytics 4
• Browse all courses
• CXL Features
• Bottom-of-funnel SEO strategies in tough niches
• Growing AppSumo to 80m with performance marketing
• Account based marketing
• Building an innovative product
• Growth Strategy
• Marketing strategy
• Partner Marketing
• Project Management for Marketers
• Retention: the most underrated growth channel
• User-centric marketing
• Data-driven influencer marketing
• Messaging strategy in public relations
• Sales Copywriting & Product Messaging
• Content marketing research
• Content recycling
• Email Marketing: Fundamentals
• Organic Social Media
• Product Marketing Content
• Scaling Content Marketing
• Content strategy and SEO for lead generation
• Growth Focused SEO testing
• On-Page, On-Site & Programmatic SEO
• SEO Link Building
• SEO-Driven Editorial Calendar
• Technical SEO
• Advanced Facebook Ads
• Advanced LinkedIn Ads
• Facebook Ads Creative
• Facebook Ads Experimentation
• Facebook Ads for Beginners
• Google Ads Experiments
• Google Ads for Beginners
• Linkedin Experimentation
• GA4 Intermediate
• Google Analytics 4 for beginners
• Preparing for Your GA4 Implementation
• Special Topics in GTM for GA4
• Attribution
• Data presentation and visualization
• Excel and Sheets for marketers
• Transactional data analysis
• Advanced Google Tag Manager
• Google Tag Manager for Beginners
• The Measurement Matrix
• Advanced Experimentation Masterclass
• CRO Agency masterclass
• Experimentation program management
• Intro to CRO and Experimentation
• Heuristic Evaluation
• Strategic Research for Experimentation
• User research
• Voice of Customer data
• A/B testing foundations
• A/B testing mastery
• CRO for Ecommerce Growth
• Good Practices
• Statistics for A/B testing
• Statistics fundamentals for testing
• Testing Strategies
• Digital psychology & behavioral design
• Intermediate statistics
• Landing Page Optimization
• People & Psychology
• Personalizing for conversion
• Brand strategy
• Positioning
• Radical differentiation
• Integrated Public Relations and SEO
• Storytelling
• Audience building
• Community building
• Community strategy
• Brand tracking 101
• Brand tracking with Momentive
• Customer storytelling and proof
• Segmentation and Persona Research
• Building a marketing agency
• Managing a remote marketing team
• Marketing Management
• Sales and customer success enablement
• Automation with Apps script
• Data collection on the web
• Data extraction
• Mobile Analytics
• Tag managers
• Python for marketers
• R for marketers
• SQL for marketers
• API Applications
• Cloud computing concepts
• Cloud services
• Machine learning applications
• Machine learning fundamentals
• Attention Basics
• Decision Making and Emotions
• Learning and Memory
• Building Habits and Loyalty
• Building Trust
• Cognitive Biases
• Nonconscious Motivation
• Principles of Persuasive Design
• Facebook Ads for ecommerce
• Google Ads for Ecommerce
• Google Shopping
• Selling on Amazon: Perfecting Traffic and Conversions
• Ecommerce Content Marketing
• Ecommerce SEO
• Email and SMS Marketing for Ecommerce
• Customer experience for ecommerce
• Customer journey for ecommerce
• Customer segmentation for ecommerce
• Retention and Customer Lifetime Value
• Ecommerce brand strategy
• Ecommerce merchandising
• Personalization for ecommerce
• Promotional events
• Selling on Marketplaces
• Ecommerce data and metrics
• Ecommerce forecasting
• Ecommerce tech stack
• Unit economics for ecommerce
• Competitive intel & market research
• Introduction to product marketing
• Positioning and company storytelling
• Pricing and packaging
• Product Analytics
• Analyst relations
• Product launches
• Hiring product marketers
• Working with the product team
• What is included in All-access
• First time here? See all resources
• Original research studies
• AB test calculator
• Conversion rate optimization guide
• Conversion optimization guide
• Ecommerce best practices
• Bounce rate guide: The foundations
• Clickthrough rate guide: The foundations
• Follow our B2B strategy podcast
• Sign up now

How To Use AI to Increase Efficiency in Your User Research

Paul Boag, an expert in user experience (UX) design and conversion rate optimization (CRO), shares how AI has revolutionized his work. He explains that AI has “made my job a lot easier,” offering tools that simplify user research and provide new ways to gather and analyze data. In this blog, we’ll explore how AI is transforming user research, the advantages it offers, and why user research is crucial for UX and CRO. We’ll also break down the step-by-step processes Paul uses to integrate AI into his workflow.

Table of contents

Why user research matters in ux and cro, common challenges in user research, the advantages of using ai for user research, step-by-step process for using ai in survey analysis, using ai tools for interview analysis, the future of user research with ai, get scale-up growth strategies in your inbox..

User research is key to creating effective UX designs and improving conversion rates. By understanding what users need, how they behave, and what challenges they face, businesses can make their websites and apps more user-friendly and effective.

In UX, user research helps designers build interfaces that are intuitive and enjoyable. Boag points out that “user research can be difficult and time-consuming… because it’s challenging to understand and interpret what you’re learning as a user researcher.” Despite these challenges, the insights gained are invaluable for making designs that truly meet user needs.

For CRO, user research identifies the barriers that prevent users from completing desired actions, like signing up or making a purchase. Boag uses a simple yet powerful approach: “If you decided not to sign up today, it would be helpful to know why.” This question uncovers objections and concerns that businesses can address directly, improving their chances of converting users.

Without thorough user research, UX and CRO efforts can miss the mark, leading to designs and strategies that don’t resonate with users. By making user research a priority, businesses ensure that their decisions are based on real user insights, not assumptions.

Although user research is essential, it often comes with significant challenges:

• Data Overload : Platforms like Google Analytics and Hotjar provide large amounts of data, but making sense of it all can be overwhelming. Boag notes, “Whether it’s Google Analytics, whether it’s Hotjar, wherever you’ve got a large amount of data, working through and getting understandings and insights… can be really difficult.” This can make it hard to focus on what’s most important.
• Analyzing Open-Ended Surveys : Surveys with open-ended questions give valuable qualitative insights but can be intimidating to analyze manually. Boag says, “If you haven’t run a survey and have an open-ended question and you’re faced with hundreds, if not thousands of answers… that is intimidating.” Sorting through this data to find common themes is time-consuming and complex.
• Handling Interview Transcripts : User interviews are rich in insights but managing the transcripts can be a challenge. Boag describes the difficulty of finding specific comments or recurring themes: “You’re then faced with transcripts of these conversations. Where did someone say that? And I’m sure I remember this, but I can’t remember where or how to find it.” Manually reviewing transcripts is a tedious process that can delay research outcomes.

AI provides solutions to these challenges by automating data analysis and simplifying the process of extracting insights from user feedback.

AI enhances user research by speeding up processes, improving accuracy, and enabling deeper analysis. Here are some key benefits of using AI in user research:

• Automated Data Analysis : AI can quickly process large datasets, whether from surveys or analytics tools, to identify patterns and trends that might be missed by human analysis. Boag mentions, “AI is an amazing tool that helps you… understand data.” This automation saves time and allows researchers to focus on drawing meaningful conclusions.
• Enhanced Qualitative Analysis : AI’s natural language processing capabilities are especially useful for analyzing open-ended survey responses and interview transcripts. Boag uses ChatGPT to analyze survey responses and rank common themes, which makes it easier to see what’s most important. He notes, “It’ll take a few minutes to look through all of those answers… with Ai, it’s not a few minutes, but a few seconds.” This speed allows researchers to get valuable insights quickly.
• Scalability : AI makes it possible to scale research efforts without increasing the workload. Boag emphasizes that AI tools enable researchers to “do so much more user research than you’ve ever done before,” because the tools handle much of the heavy lifting. This scalability is crucial for businesses looking to expand their research capabilities or handle large datasets.
• Improved Accuracy and Consistency : AI analyzes data with a high level of accuracy and consistency, reducing the risk of human error. This objective approach ensures that the insights derived are reliable and unbiased.
• Faster Iterations and Better UX : AI helps businesses respond to user feedback faster, allowing them to make improvements more quickly. Boag points out that AI allows researchers to “look at information in ways that I’ve never been able to do before as a user researcher.” This ability to rapidly interpret data leads to better user experiences and more effective design updates.

Boag outlines a straightforward approach to using AI for analyzing open-ended survey responses, addressing one of the biggest hurdles in user research:

• Download and Upload Survey Data : Boag begins by downloading the survey results as a CSV file and uploading it to ChatGPT. He explains, “You literally just drag and drop it [the CSV file] to ChatGPT.”
• Prompt ChatGPT for Analysis : Once the file is uploaded, Boag uses specific prompts to guide ChatGPT. For example, he asks, “Attached is a survey asking the question, ‘If you decided not to sign up today, it would be useful to know why. Please, can you identify common themes?’” ChatGPT then sifts through the responses, identifies patterns, and ranks them by frequency.
• Review and Act on Insights : The analysis quickly reveals actionable insights. For instance, ChatGPT might highlight “cost being too high” as a top reason why users don’t convert. By ranking the most common themes, Boag can prioritize which issues to address first, making it easier to focus on what will have the biggest impact on conversions.

This process, which once could take days, now takes only minutes, thanks to AI’s powerful data processing capabilities.

User interviews provide deep insights but are often underused due to the effort required to analyze them. Boag introduces Fathom , an AI tool that automates the transcription and analysis of interviews, making it a valuable addition to any researcher’s toolkit.

How to Use Fathom for Interview Analysis :

• Automated Notes and Highlights : Fathom automatically generates meeting notes and highlights key themes from the interview. Boag explains, “It’s created these meeting notes for me… covering all of the different areas of improvements or things that the user wants.”
• Easy Navigation and Search : With Fathom, users can jump directly to specific parts of the conversation, saving time otherwise spent manually searching through transcripts. Boag says, “I can jump through to any of these [questions] and see what response I got to those questions,” showing how the tool’s features make data more accessible.
• Ask Specific Questions : Users can also ask Fathom specific questions about the interview content, like “What were the main pain points experienced by this user?” The AI pulls insights directly from the transcript, giving researchers the ability to focus on strategic analysis rather than manual data extraction.

These capabilities make Fathom a powerful tool for anyone looking to get the most out of their user interviews, turning raw data into actionable insights quickly and efficiently.

AI is not just a tool for speeding up user research; it is changing the entire approach to how researchers work. By automating routine tasks, scaling efforts, and providing deeper insights, AI allows researchers to focus on strategy and creative problem-solving.

Boag’s experience shows that embracing AI in user research leads to more effective and efficient outcomes. As he concludes, “Go and try these tools, because you’ll find that you can do so much more user research than you’ve ever done before, because it’s so much quicker and you’ll get better results too.” For UX and CRO professionals, using AI is no longer optional—it’s becoming essential for staying competitive and delivering the best user experiences.

An expert-led newsletter focused on helping marketing teams at growth/expansion stage companies overcome growth challenges, crush their competition, and stand out in the market.

Join 140,000+ marketers | Subscribe to our educational newsletter

Stefan Maritz

Stefan is a results-driven brand-first, content-second t-shaped marketer representing CXL as our marketing lead. Stefan's portfolio contains leading B2C and B2B brands and has been featured in marketing publications like Marketing Week and Marketing Mag.

Current article:

Search posts.

• Acquisition (182)
• Brand Building (24)
• Business Building (111)
• Copywriting (43)
• CRO & Testing (318)
• Customer Stories (7)
• Digital Analytics (89)
• Marketing Tactics (50)
• Original Research (16)
• Psychology (81)
• Social Media (20)
• User Experience & Persuasive Design (181)

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Join 140,000+ marketers and get a weekly expert-led newsletter focused on helping marketing teams overcome growth challenges, punch above their weight, and crush their competition.

• Your e-mail *
• I agree to receive updates from CXL.
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.