What do coffee and your portfolio have in common? Let's think of a portfolio as a cup of this aromatic beverage. Just like coffee, a portfolio should strike the perfect balance between bold and subtle!

The beans (your projects) should be carefully selected and roasted to perfection to represent the best of what you have to offer. Each bean is unique, with its own distinct flavor profile. The aroma (your visual design) attracts and entices, soaking up the eyes of potential clients or employers with its cleanliness…

Well, okay! I just couldn't resist that parallel when it comes to the "3rd wave" 😁R Bt let's get down to business!

Today we are going to talk about changing approaches to portfolio creation, why this has happened, and what a design portfolio should look like today.

1. Why the 3rd wave?

All kidding aside, the 3rd wave is indeed distinguishable. Of course, it's not just about portfolio design, but about the concept of a "digital product designer" in general, which changes over time and under the influence of various events.

And changes in self-presentation, especially in the portfolio, are already a certain consequence of all these large-scale transformations.

1.1 The first wave—Craftsmanship

In the days when everyone was a "web designer," a portfolio had to demonstrate the technical skills of a specialist — the ability to create an attractive design.

And it was cool when the viewer's natural reaction came out: "Oh, wow!" accompanied by drops of saliva from the mouth.

1.2 The second wave—Design Process

Next, UX design gained momentum. We began to talk about usability. The grandfathers of design started writing books and formalizing the theory. Designers brought into practice user research and user problems, data analyze, and adopted design thinking and an iterative approach.

The design process became dominant. Along with the problem statement, research findings, hypotheses, and solutions, the description of the design process had to be demonstrated in the portfolio. Otherwise, it was not comme il faut. Question: "Describe your design process" was definitely asked during the first interview. And probably a few more times after.

1.3 The third wave — Impact

And then the pandemic struck. A full-scale of Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The war added momentum to an already raging global economic crisis that hit the digital industry hard. And let's add the popularization of AI and mass layoffs to that sauce.

The oversaturation of the market with talented designers, along with all of the above, has led to further changes in what designers are expected to do, the scope of their responsibilities, their skills, and the hiring process.

2. How do employers now look for designers, and how are decisions made?

Even a lean startup that popped up yesterday after the rain will get a hundred resumes for a UX/UI designer position (instead of a few, as it used to be). And design managers, executives, and CEOs face a problem: all the great designer portfolios are full of double diamonds, plenty of context of a project, wireframes, and some "final" screens.

A regular portfolio used to sell a specialist as someone who knows all the theory, the design process, knows how to think, and is better or worse at UI.

But have the problems been solved, and how successfully? How did the metrics change? And did the designer have any business metrics in mind when they sat down to iterate on the design?

In short, most portfolios lack an answer to the question: What impact has this work had on the business?

Related material A good article by a designer at Atlassian with a telling title: How focusing on process is ruining your design portfolio.

So what are hiring managers paying attention to now?

2.1 The process of finding solutions is still important to see in the candidate's portfolio. However, photos of people being interviewed, screenshots from the Hotjar, stickers on the whiteboard that a designer took at the next workshop (or picked up from stocks), etc. are all unnecessary and just distract from the main point. There should be just enough context to understand what challenges the designer was trying to solve.

Related material A great article, Are you boring your interviewer by over-explaining context?, that highlights the importance of providing the right amount of context to the viewer.

"Over-explaining context can be a prevalent mistake, especially to the detriment of what you did. It's impossible to convey the context fully, but doing so often detracts from what people care about, how you work to solve problems, and how you apply your skills."

2.2 What impact did the work and design solutions presented have on the business? What metrics were used to analyze the success of the solutions: did they reduce drop-offs, improved product's ratings, increased conversion? What happened in the end, and how does the designer know they were successful?

2.3 The work should be narrative and have a personal story that stands out and is memorable among hundreds of other resumes and portfolios.

3. What should your portfolio look like today? The recipe.

Molly Cox gives good advice in her Design Portfolio Playbook, and also describes step-by-step how she conducts a portfolio review. Note how many times this suggestion appears on these slides: "Tell a story, make the case studies personal" (as well as the entire portfolio in general). Molly even suggests that from now on, we just call case studies—stories. And I can't agree more!

3.1 Storytelling

Your portfolio is your most important sales tool. The best way to sell something is to communicate in the way to resonate with others, and to pique the curiosity of your potential employer or client. Until now, designers' portfolios have been more like screenshots of their work contexts than cohesive stories that can sell expertise.

Related material The principles of narrative construction and schemas for working with storytelling can be found in my previous article Storytelling for Designers.

You can also find questions to ask yourself when creating a project story in this short article.

3.2 Less process, more results

Your portfolio should focus on the end results, not the artifacts of the process. Beautiful user flows and customer journey maps created specifically for a portfolio will do more harm than good if they are fictional.

And by results, we mean not just the final design layouts, but the story of how they impacted the company you designed for and were paid to work for.

3.3 Metrics and business focus

Begin each story by stating the problem and the metrics you agreed with the team to monitor and analyze. Conclude your story by answering whether you were able to solve the problem. Use the numbers from the metrics mentioned at the beginning to support the answer.

4. Examples of 3rd wave work stories

Finally, let's look at the examples!

4.1 Turo Support Portal Redesign by Ramotion They're probably one of the best digital design studios in the world, so it's no surprise that their work is my first choice. What to look for:

• The impact is in the title of the work: Improve self-service by 30%
• Sufficient context
• Excellent description of the problem
• Specific goals and metrics are stated at the beginning
• Elegant presentation of solutions
• The story ends with the results achieved and how the metrics have changed

4.2 Swiftwash Laundry UI/UX Mobile App Case Study by Orbix Studio

• A good example of storytelling
• Introduction with the challenges stated and proposed solutions
• Demonstration of the results, supported by the impact of the design on the business

4.3 Healthcare Platform by Arounda

• Adequate context and description of the problem
• The perfect balance of artifacts in the story to understand that this is quality work, and to bring a desire to learn more
• Excellent presentation of results with metrics

4.4 Finding safe and compatible travel partners within communities from Nizwa

This is an example of good storytelling and how to present information in the face of a lack of data (a common case in educational projects).

4.5 Increase app installs by 600% on Fave's new landing page by Rachel How

From the beginning of the story, we realize that it is not just about the design, but also about how it has influenced the company. And only then we have the process, the artifacts, and everything we need to evaluate the designer's skills.

That's all for today. I wish you success, and your new stories to easily jump on the crest of the 3rd wave 🌊

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