This documentation is a work in progress. The full story is coming soon. I presented this talk at Rice University’s Design-a-thon in February 2024.
When I first started out as a designer, I was surprised to learn that pushing pixels was only a small part of the job. Yes, I did become a Figma wizard 🧙♀️, but I also became an expert in making slide decks.
Learning to speak about your work is crucial to being a good product designer. Designers who know how to tell a story are more likely to get their designs implemented and often have That’s why the portfolio presentation is such a common interview type.
In the interview, they want to make sure you can:
- Explain your design reasoning.
- Tell a captivating story.
- Present your work to an audience
Elements of a story
I have watched a lot of portfolio presentations during my career. The biggest mistake I see is when a presentation is structured like this:
Please DON’T DO THIS 💚!
What’s wrong with this structure? It focuses on the what, not the why. Interviewers want to learn about HOW you think. If you “did” something, it’s only important if it helped you learn something.
The other format I see is 😴 “the design process” format. In fact, you’ve probably created one of these diagrams before!
Also, DON’T DO THIS 💚!
Ok, Elizabeth. But what’s wrong with showing the design process? I thought that’s what designers are supposed to do! Well, the problem with this specific diagram is that it shows a linear design process.
The design process is not linear.
Every project is different and does not necessarily follow the same structure.
You might loop through the design process like this.
Or, maybe you’ll spend more time on the research phase.
You could even spend the majority of your time designing and testing.
A few closing notes
- Don’t be boring.