Ep 15. Building Your UX Portfolio: For Transitioning Teachers

Are you a teacher interested in a creative career in UX (User Experience) Design? Let's unwrap the essentials of a portfolio that stands out, not just as a showcase, but as a narrative of your professional journey.

In this episode, I offer tips for building your first UX portfolio and reflect on my early portfolio as a transitioning teacher to my current portfolio as a Senior UX Researcher. I share my lessons learned and practical advice to get started on your UX journey.

You can sign up for a mock interview or portfolio-building session here.

Resources:

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Transcript

Zee: 0:00

Hello teacher friends, Coach Z here. I want to start by saying congratulations to our Teacher Appreciation Week giveaway winner, cglcrews. She won the Instagram giveaway and she's going to be receiving a free one-hour coaching session from UX Teacher Prep. I love giving back to educators, so I'm glad I was able to offer that giveaway and it was super fun. So congratulations, girl. So in today's episode we are going to talk about tips for building your UX portfolio. It does feel like a daunting task, but, step by step, I'm going to talk you through these tips and hopefully ease some of that anxiety you may have around getting it done. So stay tuned.

Narrator: 0:38

Welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast, the ultimate destination for educators who aspire to break into the field of user experience and product design. Your host, z Arnold, a 15-year teacher turned UX researcher, is here to guide, coach and mentor you through every twist and turn as you make your career transition into tech. If you're ready for a more satisfying career and lifestyle and you want the balance to unleash your creativity, this podcast is for you. Now for the show.

Zee: 1:17

So, now that the school year is coming to an end, you have the whole summer to relax and focus on the things that bring you joy, whether it's going to the beach, traveling with your family or sleeping in all day. I really hope you do take some time for yourself to enjoy life, and the summer is also a good time to work on your career transition portfolio, especially for those of you who've said that the 2023-2024 school year was your last year in the classroom, so this summer, you can set aside some time to work on your portfolio. One thing I want to say before we get started is that your portfolio won't be perfect. It's always going to be a work in progress, so give it some time and understand that you'll be returning to it to iterate, revise and improve it over and over again. When it comes to UX portfolios, there's some questions that aspiring UX professionals ask all the time, so I'm going to answer those questions based on my experience and my research. The first thing you have to ask yourself is do I need to create a portfolio? And if you're trying to transition into UX user experience, my answer is yes, you need a portfolio, and I would say you also need a portfolio for most positions in tech. The way I see it is that you need to always put 100% in all you do, and that's how I approach every situation. So if there's an opportunity for me to showcase my work, I'm going to do it. It always feels great to present a project that you worked on and that you're proud of. This week, I'm celebrating two years out of the classroom and in my new role.

Zee: 2:46

I started as a UX researcher and recently got promoted to senior UX researcher. I look back at my first portfolio and I laugh a little bit because, even though I'm proud of it, I know that I've come a long way. At that point in my career, when I first created my portfolio, it was based on what I knew and what I had researched. I was in a different place. I was still teaching, still trying to make my way into another industry. But now my portfolio looks very different. Since I've been in the field for two years and I've worked on so many projects, I've also gotten a better understanding of what to present and how to present it.

Zee: 3:19

So, like I said earlier, a portfolio is something that keeps evolving over time. So don't consider it a final project. You're going to have to revisit it often, add new projects to it, take away some of the old projects and so on. It's kind of like teaching. I think about the very first lesson plan that I wrote when I was training to be a teacher and then I looked back at it when I was about three years into teaching, five years into teaching and even before I left teaching and obviously your work is going to grow and improve over time. If you've been teaching for five years and you look back at the very first lesson plan you wrote, I'm sure you would laugh and say that was good, but that's just the very beginning, right? So in the same way, the portfolio evolves over time. So don't expect it to be perfect and understand that you're going to grow, you're going to learn more and more and you're going to continually revise it and it's going to become better and better.

Zee: 4:10

So that brings me to my next topic, which is what medium should you use for your portfolio? So there's many ways that you can do this. There's really no right or wrong. It comes down to what you're comfortable with and knowing your audience. So what tools do you already know how to use and what medium will work best for presenting to your audience. You can create a slide deck and convert it to a PDF file. Another way you could do it is to create a portfolio website using a website builder like Squarespace, webflow or Wix. Those are just a few examples. I would suggest presenting a PDF file as opposed to a website, and there's a few reasons for that. Creating a portfolio website is a bit more complicated than creating a PDF, and teachers already know how to create a slideshow using Google Slides or PowerPoint and turn it into a PDF, so there's nothing new to learn there.

Zee: 5:02

When I was applying to UX Jobs, I actually used Wix to create my portfolio website because I felt like having a website would make me stand out more. Today, I don't think that's true, or at least not for UX research or positions. Plus, I was already working on a client's website through the UX bootcamp that I was taking, so I figured creating my own website would help me develop the skills I needed to do that UX writing I was doing to improve her work. I used Wix to create mine and it was pretty easy to figure out, so I embedded the link to my website on my resume. However, when it was time to present my work in my interviews, I did create a slide deck tailored to the role I was interviewing for, and I presented it as a PDF. And the reason for this is it wouldn't make sense to create a website and then create the exact duplicate of that website in a PDF form. A website and then create the exact duplicate of that website in a PDF form no, no, no. The PDF is a tailored presentation that's different from the way your work is presented on your website.

Zee: 5:58

So let's say, for example, you create a portfolio website and you have four pieces of work on there and two are tailored to one industry let's say the education space, like ed tech and then two are tailored to another industry let's say finance. Being a UX researcher, writer, designer in the finance field, you want to make sure you highlight the ones that are tailored to industry A for industry A's hiring manager in that interview. So what that meant for me was I created multiple slide decks for different roles that I was interviewing for. You can't expect a hiring manager to sift through your entire website to find what they're looking for. It's a nice glimpse of what you can do, but that's only the first step. The next step is that you actually take them through the process while you're sitting in your interview, and what I mean by that is walking them through the different steps you had to take to get through that entire process, whether it was a UX research process, ux design process or UX writing process. When you get into the interview, it's time for you to walk them through that portfolio, which is why it's so important to have a tailored experience for your audience.

Zee: 7:01

Now, I know firsthand that simply starting your portfolio can be overwhelming, especially when you have no idea what to put in it. So if you're trying to decide what medium to use, that can also be a factor that actually holds you back and keeps you procrastinating. It took me a long time to actually start building my portfolio because I just didn't know where to start, what to use. You know, I was just looking through different portfolios online and saving them to my bookmarks and trying to get ideas, and that process just kept going around in circles and circles and circles. So I know that it can be something that holds you back from moving to the next step, but building your portfolio doesn't have to be this daunting task. It can be a creative and fun project, but you have to decide to start or it's never gonna get started.

Zee: 7:46

If you don't know how to make a website, don't stress about it unless you really want to flex that muscle and show off your website building skills. For example, if you're applying for a UX designer position and you want to showcase your ability to build out a website that users can easily navigate, it's all about the work and the content that's inside your portfolio. However, if you're applying to a role as a web designer, for example, it would make perfect sense for you to use the website to showcase your portfolio, because then you can showcase your web design skills. So knowing your audience is key. So the next thing I want to touch on is a question.

Zee: 8:16

I get a lot from my clients and I also see online a lot of people asking this question how many pieces of work should you have in your UX portfolio? I would say include at least two to three pieces of work in your portfolio, because when it comes down to an interview, you might only have enough time to present one or two of those pieces. You don't need to go overboard and have 10 or 15 pieces in your portfolio, but definitely have more than one. You want to showcase at least two different methods that you used if you're going for UX research or position, or two different projects that you worked on if you're doing anything else. You definitely want to show your breadth and depth of knowledge and show that you know how to do different UX research methods if that's what you are working on or different types of UX design projects, and make sure that you're showcasing high quality projects. Which leads me to my next point. Teachers often ask the question what do I actually put in my portfolio? And it's a good question. One thing you don't want to do is pad your portfolio with fluff. You want to include your best work. Your portfolio pieces should be rich, work that shows the impact that you had on an organization or a product, work that you're proud of and that you can thoroughly explain and walk a hiring manager through.

Zee: 9:31

One option is to start a UX project you've worked on while you were in the classroom. So if you're in the classroom right now, you can create your own case study about a website that you use as an educator or that your students use. For example, if you're transitioning to a UX research position, you can try to solve a problem related to a website that your students use often, but experience friction with. Let's say, it takes students several clicks to get to a specific page that they use often. You can do some kind of research to find out how many students are experiencing that problem, listen to their pain points and try to come up with a solution to streamline that click path for them. So what I'm saying is use your UX skills to build a case study based on something you've worked on in your classroom, and if you're looking for a UX role in ed tech, that's a really great idea, because now you can showcase something that you've done in the education space.

Zee: 10:22

Another option is to, of course, include a project that you're working on in your UX course or UX boot camp. If you're in school for human computer interaction, you obviously have projects that you're working on there, so you would want to use one of those projects in your portfolio as well. If you don't have a project that you worked on in a course or a boot camp, you can add a project that you worked on independently, as a freelancer, so to speak, or someone in your community, to help them improve their website or their app and to streamline some type of experience there, get feedback from users and so on. You can do an independent project like that, where you can improve an experience for a company. I like the idea of including a piece that you worked on in the classroom, though, for your portfolio, especially if you're trying to transition into an ed tech position. But I want to take a step back to tell you that if you're thinking about a different field let's say healthcare, for example you definitely want to include a piece that's related to that field. So if you want to go into the healthcare field as a UX researcher or UX designer, ux writer, or you want to go into the finance space as one of those roles, try to include a piece that's related to that field so that those who are reviewing your portfolio get a real sense of how you can connect to that industry and how you can add value to that industry. That's going to include your background, knowledge of the industry and also the pieces that you include in your portfolio.

Zee: 11:46

Now I do have a portfolio building course that I offer through my website, but I'm going to give you a taste of that right now, and this is based on extensive research that I've done and what has worked for me in my interviews. My portfolio landed me two UX job offers one for UX researcher and one for UX writer and those were two different slide decks that I created. So what I'm telling you to do is I'm telling you to include the pieces of the UX design process in your portfolio. So for me, as a UX researcher, that would be giving the context, the problem, the objective, the research that was done, including empathizing with users, designing, doing the research, the findings and, finally, the impact that it had on the organization and within that process of the research. I would include the method that I used, the audience, the recruitment procedure, the research questions and the final result of that UX project. The next thing I want to tell you to include is your UX philosophy. When you're creating that slide deck to present to hiring managers, you want to make sure that you include a little about me section and then a philosophy section where you talk about your UX philosophy and what you believe to be true in the world of UX. That's just a taste of what I offer in my portfolio building course.

Zee: 13:07

So when you feel like your UX portfolio is in a good place and you're ready to get some feedback on it, your first iteration If you're part of an online Slack community or you're part of a group of teachers who are transitioning.

Zee: 13:19

You can definitely ask for feedback there, and it's important to get feedback on your portfolio because you want other people to take a look at it and provide feedback on the visual aspect of it Maybe the colors are not contrasting well.

Zee: 13:30

You also want to get feedback on the actual contents of it, and so you want to hear from people who are in the field and people who are not in the field, so even a family member can provide feedback on your portfolio, but you also want to put it in front of someone who's in the field that you're going to as well, because you do want to make sure that your portfolio is understandable, and I do have a service that I offer on my website where we do mock interviews, and that's where we would go through that process and you'd be able to get feedback from me.

Zee: 13:57

So if that's something you're interested in, you can go ahead and book that service. I'm not going to get too much into the presentation part of the portfolio in this particular episode, but if you plan to attend a UX portfolio session with me or a mock interview, like I mentioned, that's when we'd go over those specific details and we can go back and forth with the feedback on your portfolio. So I hope you got some good ideas for how to set up your UX portfolio or your career transition portfolio, and if you have any questions, go ahead and click down below where it says text me and I'll be sure to reach out to you with a response. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and also we answer every single DM that we get in the inbox. Until next time, be well.

Narrator: 14:39

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this podcast, hit, follow and scroll down to leave a five-star rating. Then share it with a friend. If you're looking for resources to help you on your tech transition journey, head over to uxteacherprepcom. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at uxteacherprep for daily tips and motivation. Have a topic you'd like to hear addressed on the show? Send us a DM on Instagram. If you're listening on YouTube, like, subscribe and share. Until next time, be well.