PACE UNIVERSITY, NYC The seminar opened with Ben explaining that successful UX portfolio is not about late-stage assets or finished product, it’s about illustrating your process. You don’t want to just tell the end of the story, you want to tell a story about the way you think. PDF documents are the preferred medium in which to do this as they offer a level of control and are linear in nature. Plus, they can be printed or posted on a website with password protection.
Both photography and videography play a big role. Photographing or videotaping the evolutionary stages of the project, and incorporating these in your presentation is essential. Don't fill your presentation with wireframes or late-stage assets, but rather with sketches, photos and documentation of each stage of the process and brief descriptions of what they represent.
“You are more than a collection of wireframes”
Myth’s and misconceptions about NDAs
NDAs, or Non-Disclosure Agreements can hamper the job search process. Or do they? most firms won’t even consider you if you’ve blatently broken your NDA, as you might just as easily break theirs. But the excuse that showing work violates your NDA, or that it exists behind a firewall is no longer accepted. So what di you do? Here are some common solutions:- Debrand your work.
- Don’t publish it under a public URL.
- Password protect it.
Banks have particularly scary NDAs. So simply debrand them.
Transitioning
The best approach to transitioning is to know the UX process inside and out. Once you know it, you can create a portfolio from some non-commercial UX, creating the documentation over a weekend. The solution to not having portfolio work is therefore to “do some”, “make some”.Transitioners who know the UCD process start to finish incredibly well theoretically, are arguably in a better position.
Length of Your Portfolio
Ten to fifteen pages is a good starting point, and up to 25 not unreasonable. But over 25, you have to justify it with some fairly extraordinary circumstances.The duration a portfolio is viewed runs about 30-45 seconds. But, if well put together, it may very well hold the viewers attention longer. So, good graphic design skills can be beneficial here. Nothing speaks to your authority as a UXD professional as a cohesive, well-organized presentation.
The Wrap-up
Ben also spoke of the difference between expert reviews, and user reviews. As an “expert” you always have the opportunity to conduct your own review, using the tools and knowledge you already have at your disposal. This expert reviews are easy to incorporate in your portfolio. User reviews on the other hand, require outside resources, and while important, can be somewhat less accessible and more complex to coordinate and facilitate. However, UCD can be a granular, iterative process, requiring many stages and thus many opportunities for both expert and user-based testing.After this invaluable presentation came the heart of the evening’s events: Speed Dating.
Each participant had three minutes with a UX practitioner, to advise them on how to configure their resumes specifically for this industry. Again, nothing speaks usability like a concise resume which focuses on the significant rather than the superfluous. When the time was up, deftly indicated by placing the MC’s microphone up to an iPhone playing the obnoxious but effective “Alarm” alert sound, everyone reluctantly moved on to their next “date”. It was a fun forum with effective results, after which tweaking (or even re-writing from scratch) one’s resume seemed not nearly the arduous task it was previously.
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