Personal website design
Empowering my creativity to design my portfolio that demonstrates my skills as a UX designer.
Overview
Project Timeline
Jun 2021 - Dec 2021
My role
Product manager
UX designer
Visual designer
Context
I want to become a UX expert in the future and to achieve my goal I need to refine my skills in projects where UX is widely used in the work cycle. This website needs to help me to get into those projects.
I tried to design it user-friendly and visually attractive, also tried to show the skills I learned all these years. I applied 5-stage Design Thinking methodology during the design process.
I led the entire project and worked on all the design aspects, also I helped the developers to implement the entire website.
Problem
I want to get into projects where UX is widely used in the work cycle. I need to demonstrate my UX experience and skills to get into those projects.
Constraints
Limited time
I had a full-time job and I was taking some online courses during the project. I could only spare a couple of hours a day and I had to use that time wisely.
Unexpected delay
I caught C19 during the design process and I had to delay the project for about 2 months until I could fully recover.
Hard to get feedback
It was hard to get feedback from the target audience. Most members of my target audience I know were too busy to spare time for reviews.
Design Process
Empathize
User research &
Competitor
analysis,
Define
Target audeince
Ideate
Tasks to do &
User flow
Prototype
Low-fi Wireframe
& prototype
Test
Expert reviews
I learned about my users & competitors
User research.
As I targetted international companies I couldn’t use research methods like user interviews or observations. So I decided to surf the internet and I was excited to find a lot of hiring tips and feedback from UX managers all around the world. These are points to analyze:
Hiring managers are interested in case studies, not just the final look of the design.
They want to see the candidates’ thinking process and understand howcandidates solve problems.
They also desire to see the results and impact the design brought to the project or company.
They don’t read, they usually scan or scim case studies. If they find it interesting then they read.
They usually have 40+ candidates per position, 1-2 per portfolio and spend around 30sec for each case study.
Comptetitor analysis.
I also decided to see how professional UX designers have designed their websites. I checked around 70 portfolio websites and analyzed their layout, information architecture and the overall design. I discovered these tendencies in those websites:
66 designers placed their projects in the home page of their websites.
63 designers introduced themselves with a short message in the home page and gave more details in about page.
57 designers had at least 2-3 case studies in their websites.
65 designers used simple and beatifult layouts to design their websites.
Only around 9 designers provided testimonials in their website.
I defined my target audience
Jonathan
UX manager | United States
Jonathan manages a design team of 12 designers and he is thinking about hiring a new UX designer for the new product they are launching. He received a shortlist of 5 to 10 UX designers. He usually spends around 30 seconds on each case study of a candidate. If he finds a case study interesting, then he spends about 15 minutes reading the details.
Goals & Needs
Wants to hire a creative UX designer with great problem-solving skills.
Needs to know how decisions were made and based on what criteria.
Wants to see the results of the work and its impact on the business.
Emotions
Frustrated to see the lack of attention to case studies.
Upset because he sees final work more than the design process.
Juliana
HR manager | United Arab Emirates
Juliana has been an HR manager for 3 years now. She usually quickly scans candidates’ CVs and checks their portfolios. If she finds a matching candidate she adds them to her shortlist. She gets upset when links to the portfolio are broken. Sometimes she gets frustrated when she cannot find the information she needs in CVs or portfolios.
Goals & Needs
Needs to shortlist from 40-50 candidates for the UX managers.
Wants to see well-crafted and appealing portfolios.
Needs to make sure the candidates match the position requirements.
Emotions
Frustrated because of broken links to candidates’ portfolios.
Sad because of the complex and hard-to-read layout of CVs and portfolios.
I brainstormed about the website design
I decided to do the following things:
Case studies
I need to provide well crafted case studies of my best projects.
Simple layout
The layout should be very simple and easy to navigate.
More visuals
I need to use more visuals and less text in the content.
Testimonials
I need to provide testimonials from my clients and managers.
The sitemap of the website
I designed a low-fi wireframe prototype
To be able send it to my target audience and receive their reivews and make changes based on that.
What I discovered
I faced a difficulty of finding participants for usability testing. So I decided to conduct Expert reviews. I received feedback from UX, marketing, hiring managers and seniour UX/UI designers. I was suggested to:
Move testimonials
to the home page, and remove it from the main menu on top.
Keep text length
under 75 characters per line to increase the readibility.
Remove my name
and title information from the main navigation menu.
The final look
What I learned from this experience:
How to apply UX methods
This project helped me refine my UX skills. It was great opportunity to analyze and apply the best techniques during the design process.
How to manage projects
This project also helped me to test myself as a product manager. I learned more about product feasibility and viability. I can apply these skills in my future projects.
How to get expert reviews
I discovered www.adplist.org, a website where I can connect with industry professionals and schedule a meeting with them to get their feedback.
How to write a case study
It was very difficult to write case studies. I had to take deep research to gain some skills. I learned to structre, design and showcase case studies.
Other Projects
Wing Customer app redesign
Strived to find the best solution that helps Wing enhance the usability of its delivery management system, based on the new business model.
CASE STUDYJowi Owner app design
Designed an app that helps restaurant owners manage their businesses in a very efficient way.
CASE STUDY