Advice for Designer Without Conventional Experience

Better Mortgage / Eng
Black Bean

Go to company page Better Mortgage Eng

Black Bean
Jan 16, 2020 3 Comments

A UX designer I know is trying to make a portfolio but has a couple of issues with how to display their work. They work at a reputable government consultancy on a very large public user facing app.

They feel that they don’t have a full enough UX process to make convincing case studies. Their org doesn’t give them the chance to do user research or experimentation, it’s very business requirement driven. The process is basically to spend time with business discussing requirements and finding ideal layouts and feature sets, then making high fidelity mock ups. Also communicating with stakeholders and presenting features frequently.

They’re interested in applying to FAANG/unicorns and their portfolio needs to shine. I’m fairly sure other designers find themselves in this situation. Anyone have any good ideas or examples of people making great case studies or other kinds of portfolio presentations under constraints like this?

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TOP 3 Comments
  • Hulu / Other
    returnmac

    Go to company page Hulu Other

    returnmac
    Tough situation. They will have to figure out a way to do more in-depth UX work, especially if this consultancy is their only experience. Maybe they take on a freelance project and work on it nights and weekends.
    Jan 16, 2020 2
    • Better Mortgage / Eng
      Black Bean

      Go to company page Better Mortgage Eng

      Black Bean
      OP
      Is that true also for product designer roles? They’re not a UX researcher and they have ownership of an application serving millions of users. It’s good experience, it just doesn’t lend itself well to typical case study portfolios.
      Jan 16, 2020
    • Hulu / Other
      returnmac

      Go to company page Hulu Other

      returnmac
      It depends on the company and the exact role. If they're trying to get into FAANG that gov experience probably won't cut it in the portfolio review for the types of roles they have.
      Jan 17, 2020