How to design your UI/UX case study in 2022
hello and welcome to another
Content today in this Content i'm going
to share with you some concrete examples on how you can start your own case
study if you don't know where to start so let's start from the beginning
what is a case study and what is it for your case study will help recruiters and companies understand the way you work understand your design process your thought process to gauge your skill set and to understand how your designs have translated into real impact so i'll structure this case study into three parts
one common questions that
you may have second common beginner mistakes and thirdly walking you through my
case study and my thought process so one of the common questions what case
study format or platform should i go with you have many choices for example
behind notion your own website you know on square space
i think it's entirely up to you on what
platform or format you would like to go with but keep one thing in mind your
case studies should be easily shareable with recruiters through a link and also
think about the experience that the recruiter goes through when they are
reading your case study so for example if you know
you send them a pdf that is
static then how would the recruiter interact with your prototype do you want
them to click on the link and link out of the pdf to another link or is it
better if you place everything in one place
for example a website where they can just
straight away glance through your portfolio easily so think about the user
experience you are a product designer user experience is one of the most
important things that
you should focus on keep in mind that you know
you shouldn't spend too much time on thinking what to pick go with a format
that you are most comfortable with for now focus on one first and once you get
that ready
you'll actually have an idea of what platform
or format that suits yourself the most so secondly how many case studies do i
need to show if you are someone who has already worked on several projects
showcase your best three projects tailored to the job that you're applying for
but for example if you're a junior
you don't have any projects to start with i
would recommend you to just make two case studies focus on making those two
really really good showcase your thought process in that case study for example
if you don't have
any real world projects to show right now it's
okay you could just start with a mock project from design challenges which i
will share a link above here where i actually walk you through some tips that
you can get started
tackle a design challenge on
your own so that you have some projects to show potential companies always
prioritize the one that is most relevant to your job role first and remember
pick two or three of your most products projects because it's always better to
show two or three best projects rather than 10
mediocre projects another common question that
i get asked is how long should my case study be there is no hard rule to this
as long as you keep your case study with the most important information that a
recruiter should know when working with you then i think it should be good
enough
always have the problem the
goal the impact the solution and also the design process the thought process
where you went through the ideation you know the research iteration and also
show them a prototype
i'll walk you through these later in the video
so don't go away yet next up i'm gonna share with you some common beginner
mistakes that i have found while i'm looking at junior designers case studies
one of the common
mistakes that i found is a
junior designer only shows the end designs this is not a strong case study
because you're only focusing on the end designs while anyone can make pretty
designs how did you approach that design you know what made you choose this
component over the other what made you design
your patterns in this particular way why do
you choose this color this font type how did you come up with the flows did you
validate people first or assume by yourself another beginner mistake that i
find is when you apply
for a role you did not tailor your case study
according to the role that you're applying for for example if you're applying
for a role in healthcare but your case study is about games so how could a
recruiter relate to your case study if you are showing something totally
irrelevant to them try to always tailor your
case study to the role that you're applying
for if the role that you're applying for lies heavily in research always show
more research content in your case study and if the pro you're applying for is
for example more heavy or interaction design you include more interaction in
your case study go through in detail of why
each interaction is designed this way so that
it appeals to the recruiter more and they could gauge your skill set based on
your case study while you tailor your case study to the role that you're trying
to apply for it has already helped you stand out a lot more from all the
applicants in the pool another beginner mistake
that i find is you start off your case study
with everything but you did not mention the problem that you're trying to solve
at all you do not start a project without trying to figure out what problem
you're trying to solve it has to start with a problem for example you're trying
to improve the customer experience
because people keep dropping off from the app
there could be more than one problem statements but try to address that in your
designs in the solution part later so never forget the problem statement
another
common beginner mistake is
you do not spell check your case study you do not align things properly in the
case study the typography is wrong it's all over the place images are blurry do
not do that always spell check your case study always pay attention to the
details when you're preparing your case study
if i am interviewing someone and i see a case
study having plenty of spelling mistakes icons that are not aligned photos they
are not placed properly and content that doesn't make sense then how could i
trust you for the role that you're applying for so let's dive into my process
of creating a case study when i start a new project right i will usually have
it documented somewhere try to make it a habit to document
all your design but in my case i use notion i
have set up properties in notion where i have a tagline company platforms you
know my role anything here
anything that's related to
this project and it's entirely up to you on how you like to set it up but this
is just an inspiration for you the purpose of this is just to document things
fast you want some way for you to just note down things quickly you could even
use apple
notes if that's what you prefer right you
don't need to use anything complicated so this is where i store all my photos
and visualization so for example if i need to visualize this data here i will
do it in sigma and you know
any notes that i have i'll be putting it here
so once i'm done with that i'll just export them and paste it on web flow
straight away so recently if you have been following my twitter i've moved all
my case study from notion to workflow i feel like i want to tailor the
experience of people visiting my site and reading my case
studies and webflow enables
me to do this quickly and easily i managed to migrate everything in like three
days pretty fast considering that i'm also adding new content to my site this
is how my site looks like when users arrive on the page the users
are able to skip to the section that they find
relevant or they are interested to find out more recruiting managers are going
to look at what's your role in a project what is the problem that you're trying
to solve and usually
they will just skip to the impact try and
create a captivating photo for your case study you could make it into a gif and
it's up to you right up to creativity this is what attracts recruiters in
clicking into your case study and find
out more about your project
in your case study always remember to include a meaningful title instead of
just saying faith landing page redesign what problem did you solve or the
impact that you have achieved with your project
so think of a title that is meaningful and
effective next up always include an overview of your project i have included
the timeline so that people know how long have i been working on this project
and platform you know what platform
is this on is it an app in my case this is a
responsive website include your role in the project whether you're a designer
if you're a researcher developer and something that's optional is also you
could include the tools that you
have used uh the design to the research to
customers leave it to whatever that you have included as well another thing you
can include is your industry for example fintech industry healthcare industry
you know gaming so when
you're preparing a case study always include
the introduction an introduction to the company the product so that people have
enough context on what you're designing for right include your role as well in
detail i've also included you know the people that have collaborated with so
this gives recruiters an example an idea of who
you could potentially work with they could
gauge whether you have worked with people in the past or you are used to
working in silo as i mentioned just now in one of the common beginner mistakes
a lot of people
did not include their
problem statement in the case study always include a problem here if there's
more than one problem state that as well make sure that the design solution
that you've included in the end solves these problems
mentioned here so after the problem share your
goals of this project i have stated four goals that i'm trying to achieve with
this redesign each goal i'll elaborate them separately feel free to make this
into a more visually appealing
matter it doesn't have to be all text only
think of ways to make the storytelling more interesting for your case study how
you tell a story also says a lot about your capabilities as a designer this is
the most interesting part of the case
study which is the impact so if this project
has already launched include the metrics always remember that show off this
metrics in an attractive manner right so here i have done some data
visualization as well so that people
don't have to think about what data are you
trying to convey they can just look at the data look at the image and they know
immediately what this data is about so it actually cuts down some reading time
for people and it's easier
to scan and also if your project hasn't
started yet well it's fine you can just put the impact as you know it's coming
soon or it will be launched at a set date for example this is a mock project
and you do not have any real impact that
you could showcase in your case study what do
you do for example you could share your designs in a prototype manner to like
say 10 or 20 people and measure how these people have decreased their checkout
time because of your
redesign find a way to measure your impact if
possible but if you don't have any it's fine as well it's it's not a must to have
this here especially when you're starting out right now this is the time where
you share your design process
i start off the design process by sharing you
know the early ideations that we had if you have established any design
principles in your process feel free to share them here as well and of course
any sketches it doesn't
have to be pretty they are meant to look messy
they are meant to look raw and unpolished include your wireframes high fidelity
designs user flows research journey mapping all that in this section i've
shared how the user testing has been done and also how do we consolidate the
test results always share the findings
at the end of the test it's always nice to
include a before and after in your project because it helps people understand
what was the transformation that your design has went through in each final
design don't just show a photo and you know don't describe your designs so in
your design solutions always include why is the
user experience designed
this way if this project is already live you could ask them to check out the
live site by just clicking on a button if it's in a prototype stage link them
to a prototype so that recruiters can see how your product works this could be
a chance for you to also showcase your prototyping skills if you are new
and also make sure when you are linking your
prototype to the case study check if the links are correct do not link any
broken links so that recruiters don't find any mistakes in your prototype if
you have contributed in other ways
as well that is not necessarily related to
just product design you could also include them at the end of the case study
and also future steps so this section could be a section for you to share your
takeaways your learning’s
reflections right and also any future plans
that you have for the product if you feel like you could have done more user
testing you can share them inside here as well and i leave it to you to inject
your own personality into your
case study remember this
case study is going to represent you don't do what everyone else is doing
although include the necessary information say your problem your goal your
impact your design process right always include your research process your
testing so that people know that you did not design without validation
and always include the future plans or your
takeaways i will include a link to my case study down below so keep in mind
that these are just recommendations on how you could craft your case study to
appeal to the job that you're
applying for it's also a
really good way to document your design process and see how much you've grown
in years to come always make it a habit to document your design process it
would be a nice memory and also it would serve useful in the future see you