Creating a portfolio is a crucial first step for any UX designer. It’s where you showcase your best work and let your skills, as well as your personality, shine through.
Recruiters and potential clients will all want to see your portfolio website before hiring you. This is true whether you’re new to the field, or a senior looking for your next step.
The work you present in your portfolio will ultimately determine how employers and clients view you, and whether they’ll consider you for the job. But when it comes to UX design, it’s not just about what you present, but how. Your website is, in fact, a part of your work.
These 8 inspiring UX design portfolios are perfect examples of what any UX designer should aim for.
1. Alex Lakas
Alex Lakas is a UX designer with over a decade of experience working on products everyone uses. He took part in rejuvenating LinkedIn’s feed and gave Google Maps search pages the modern look they have today.
Lakas makes his caliber clear the moment you arrive, with a one-line bio that presents his experience.
A short scroll-down and you’ll find a short but precise list of clients, most of whom are major household names. This isn’t just name-dropping, it’s an important part of any experienced designer’s portfolio. Piquing your visitors’ interest right away with something familiar is the best way to motivate them to check out your work.
While boasting impressive credentials, the website doesn’t rely on that alone. After a few short lines, you’re met with the most important part of any UX portfolio – case studies. Lakas’ case studies present the thought process behind some of his most well-known work, in a clear-cut, easily digestible fashion.
Complete with a slick design that mirrors his UX work, Alex Lakas’ portfolio website is a great example of what any designer should strive for.
2. Olivia Truong
Olivia Truong is a product designer. She makes that clear the moment you enter her portfolio, in a simplistic fashion that runs through her website, as well as her work.
Truong’s UX portfolio doesn’t offer quotes or credentials. It simply displays four of her projects, in a beautifully designed, minimalistic presentation. The way she presents them, by raising questions such as “how do I manage my events onsite?”, is exactly the thought process a UX designer should have. She asks a question, referring to a common problem, and offers a solution in her case study. In this case, she presents Ticket Manager, an app developed to manage event ticket sales.
The case study is a perfect example of how UX case studies should be. She walks us through the problem she set out to solve, presents her research, and details her design process with a lot of imagery.
Olivia Truong’s portfolio pinpoints what a UX designer should present. It’s a great inspiration for designers just starting out, as it does nothing but highlight her process. If you have even one complete project, this is how to present it.
3. Ed Chao
Ed Chao is most well-known for his work with Dropbox. He’s designed their web interface, followed by their mobile app, and finally their desktop app UI.
What works best about Chao’s portfolio is the minimalizm. There are very few images and even less text. The few case studies he offers are short and don’t go into too much detail. However, what they do present is the key features and ideas behind his Dropbox UX design. This shows that Chao understands what’s important, and what can be cut out, a great trait for a UX designer.
One small, but important aspect that Ed Chao nails is the contact information. The first thing you’ll see when you arrive at his portfolio is links to his email, LinkedIn and Twitter. This is arguably one of the most important functions of a portfolio website, ensuring potential customers and recruiters can get in touch as easily as possible.
4. Jung Hoe
Jung Hoe is a UX/UI designer at Wix.com’s Playground. His portfolio website catches your attention immediately with a greeting that rapidly switches languages.
But what keeps visitors interested is the humor. With a backdrop of beautifully animated yellow blobs bouncing around, he presents himself as a “genius baby” transformed into a “fully grown design nerd”. The personality in these lines creates an immediate connection and willingness to discover more.
Scrolling down, it’s clear that this portfolio belongs to a talented and playful UX designer. As a visitor, you can flip a switch between UI/UX work and “Fun Work”. Both of which present a wide range of apps and products he’s designed. Clicking on any project will lead to a detailed case study that includes his research, thought process, and final, as well as scrapped designs.
Whether you choose to browse UX projects, or simply look at Hoe’s “Fun Work”, you’ll eventually reach an eye-catching call-to-action to “Make somethin’ fun together!” with a playful “Hit Me Up!” button leading to his email.
Jung Hoe’s portfolio is an example of how designers can showcase their personalities, as much as their work. But still, maintain a perfectly professional UX portfolio website.
5. Jamie Choi
Jamie Choi’s website is another example of a great UX portfolio that does exactly what it sets out to achieve, and nothing more.
The simple illustration of Jamie herself, the autumn color palette, and the simplicity in which her projects are presented make scrolling down her website a soothing experience.
The case studies she offers, such as her work designing an online platform for a local bakery, are perfectly precise and detailed. She walks the reader through the challenge, research, analysis, work process, and ultimately design ideas. These case studies go into extreme detail, which is what any recruiter or client would want to see.
What completes Choi’s portfolio website is her about page. Like her case studies, this section includes all the detail it needs to keep you interested, while never being too overbearing.
Jamie Choi’s UX portfolio perfectly balances two of the most important things a portfolio website needs. It provides an in-depth look into her professional work process, while simultaneously creating a feeling of personal familiarity.
6. Liz Wells
Liz Wells is a Brooklyn-based designer and senior product designer at Squarespace. Her UX portfolio site is stunningly trippy.
The homepage displays five case studies, with nothing but unique typography. You’re only met with an image when you hover over a project, an image which is then smeared across the page as you move your cursor.
What makes Wells’ portfolio truly impressive is her case studies. Her “Sidewalk Toronto” case study, for example, is summed up into a short video. If you wish to know more, you can scroll down to find a hand-drawn sketch of the site map, followed by a project description, as well as the UX challenges and solutions. The case study is accompanied by visuals that give life to her process.
Liz Wells’ UX portfolio leaves nothing to be desired, while perfectly presenting her personality as a designer.
7. Jeremy Stokes
Jeremy Stokes is a product designer at Duolingo and a former UX design intern at Google. But what’s most special about his work is his passion project – Cultivate.
With Cultivate, Stokes sets out to design a new way of understanding mental health, specifically in the African American community. The project is laid out like any other case study, providing some background into the issue and detailing the process behind building and designing the platform’s concepts.
Another aspect that shines through Stokes’ portfolio is his ability to present himself. His About page is full of imagery and references to his favorite things – video games and cartoons. But he doesn’t settle for just a bio. His portfolio includes his stunning resume, which is as much a part of the portfolio as his case studies.
Jeremy Stokes’ UX portfolio walks a thin line between professional portfolio, and personal website, and does it excellently. Showing visitors your personality can make the difference between being considered for a job, or being forgotten among dozens of other UX designers.
8. Siriveena Nandam
Siriveena Nandam is a UX designer with an analytical twist. With a background in psychology, Siriveena creates “data-driven solutions that elevate human experiences”, as her website states.
Her portfolio makes it clear that data is the key parameter that runs through her work. The design has a much more technical feel than many other UX portfolios.
As expected, scrolling down her site reveals several case studies. These are the highlights of Nandam’s portfolio, and they’re incredibly detailed.
“Our National Conversation”, a non-partisan news aggregator, is a perfect example of the type of issues Nandam tackles, and the case study includes everything a case study should. It provides a short summary, before diving into her research, analysis, wireframes, and UI designs, all with great detail, as expected from such a technical product designer.
Siriveena’s UX portfolio is an inspiring demonstration of how designers can take serious subjects and technical information and present them in an interesting way. The lack of playfulness doesn’t hinder the visitor’s experience at all and does a great job at differentiating her from the competition.
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