Community: Interviews

A portfolio review is a review of your body of work as a UX designer and a demonstration of your presentation skills and your ability to identify what is important to your audience. The process starts with preparing your work artifacts and planning what to say and how to say it—long before the portfolio review ever happens. This article details my process when preparing to present my own portfolio and what I look for in job candidates during such reviews.

Question 1: What is the problem the design is trying to solve?

When you’re discussing a design during a portfolio review or an interview, the first thing many interviewers look for is whether the problem you’re trying to solve is well defined. But candidates often present business goals as the problem—such as This project was a reskin—or personal goals—such as This was a class assignment. Or they completely skip over the problem and go right to the solution. Every good design starts with a clear vision of the problem you’re solving, so any discussion of a project should start with a clear problem statement. If you do not clearly articulate the problem, your audience won’t be able understand the purpose of the design, and they won’t be confident in your abilities as a UX designer. Read More

mindful |?mïndf?l|
adjective [predic.]
conscious or aware of something

Design, as a creative process, is often subconscious. What we create might be based on design principles, but what we ultimately produce largely comes down to emotion—how we feel about a design and, more important, how we think others will feel about it.

Jeff Johnson’s new book, Designing with the Mind in Mind, demystifies the cognitive and emotive components of design by forcing us to consider the physiological aspects of interaction design and the psychological factors that influence its interpretation. I had a chance to catch up with Jeff recently to talk about how, as user experience and interaction designers, we can all be a little more mindful of these aspects of the designs we create. Read More

Lou Rosenfeld’s newest book, Search Analytics for Your Site: Conversations with Your Customers, has been the subject of more prelaunch buzz than most UX books have gotten this year. It seemed everyone was tweeting, talking, or speculating about it before the ink had even had a chance to dry. And, true to the hype, this book delivers in spades. If you read one book this year to hone your craft, add value to your UX practice, or enable you to help your clients, this is the one! Lou recently found some time in his very hectic schedule to sit down and talk with me about his book and the burgeoning practice of site search analytics (SSA).

KM: This book is so rich with actual case studies and insights. It has obviously been years in the making.

LR: Heh… Thanks, but those “years in the making” actually had much more to do with the many other activities and milestones—both professional and personal—that interrupted my writing. To be blunt, I hate to write and would rather do just about anything else. But the extra time did help me think through the topic a bit more. I hope that shows in the final product. Read More