See data in everything
Design the invisible
See a world as data: document, analyze, find insights
Design things worth keeping
Translate a place into something someone else can feel
Articulate your design principles
Design the collaboration, not just the product
Honest iteration — early work is material, not precious
Edit ruthlessly — what you remove matters as much as what you keep
Know who you are as a designer — and show it
Week 10
Portfolio as Argument: not an archive; a designed case for who you are as a designer
Curate & Lead with the Problem: 4–6 strong projects beat 12 average; show the question, your role, your thinking
Gloria Lo: junior UX portfolio template basis (work + play sections)
Brittany Chiang: single-page clarity benchmark for design/engineering hybrids
Olivia Truong · Elizabeth Lin · Priyanka Gupta: UX/product portfolios at different career stages
IDEO · Case Study Club: HCD case-study structure + curated UX case studies
V3 live 6/1 (5+5 per team) · Curation session 6/3 in class · Portfolio + appendix 6/9 9am.
01 · Curate ruthlessly
02 · Lead with the problem
03 · Show your thinking
04 · Name your role
05 · Make it scannable
06 · Write like a person
07 · The portfolio IS the design
08 · An About page that’s human
Eight principles: the things hiring managers, grad-school admits, and senior designers consistently look for.
4–6 strong projects beat 12 average ones. Each chosen project should teach the reader something different about you. If two projects say the same thing, cut one.
“I designed an app” is weak. “Patients were missing appointments because the reminder system spoke the wrong language — here is what I changed and why” is strong. Frame each project as a question worth solving, not a deliverable produced.
Research notes, sketches, dead ends, decision points. Polished outputs alone read as decoration. The process is the proof you can actually do the work.
For team work, name what you did. Use “I” when claiming credit and “we” when crediting the team. Vague “we” on every project is a flag.
Recruiters skim in 30 seconds. Hero image → one-sentence summary → then the depth. Headings, hierarchy, and a clear path to dig in.
Drop the buzzwords. “Users” is fine; “user-centric paradigms” is not. Plain language signals confidence. Jargon signals you’re hiding.
Typography, white space, navigation, load speed. The container demonstrates your taste before anyone reads a word. Minimalism is not absence — it is confidence in your work.
Who are you when you’re not designing? What kinds of problems pull you in? Make it human, short, and specific. Generic bios get skipped.
Gloria Lo
↗glorialo.design
Olivia Truong
↗oliviatruong.design
Elizabeth Lin
↗elizabethylin.com
Brittany Chiang
↗brittanychiang.com
IDEO
↗ideo.com/work
Bestfolios
↗bestfolios.com/home
Case Study Club
↗casestudy.club
glorialo.design. Three case studies (Rokt, Leaf, Sealadder) · immediate personal hook (“I design, sing, paint & write”) · clean WORK + PLAY split · one-line role + location + experience · direct contact channels. The whole site reads in under 30 seconds; the depth lives inside each case study.
Why it’s the template: 3 strong case studies beat 10 average ones. Junior UX portfolios that land jobs at major product teams often look like this: few projects, clear voice, problem-first writing, room to breathe. Downloadable HTML template with similar structure is on slide 7.
Olivia Truong · senior product designer. Tariff Guide, Universe Dashboard, Routr. Takeaway: case studies lead with problem and metrics.
Elizabeth Lin · “Designer & Aspiring Princess.” Takeaway: personality belongs on the portfolio. Serious work, human voice.
brittanychiang.com. Single-page. Type hierarchy, generous white space, fast load, zero buzzwords. Takeaway: constraint is the design. If a recruiter spends 30 seconds, those 30 seconds should be enough.
IDEO at agency scale: problem-first writing, research visible, team credited, work speaks.
Bestfolios: curated gallery of strong junior portfolios. Sort by role; study what got people hired.
Case Study Club: weekly UX case studies. Notice how the strongest frame the problem in paragraph one.
The meta-lesson of this course:
How do you become compelling enough — through clarity, execution, and judgment — that others trust you with greater autonomy?
10 weeks ago you walked in. Now: look at what you've made.
In Week 1 you tagged 20 designs by system. Now 9 projects later, your portfolio IS the data about who you've become. Which systems did you reach for? Which did you avoid? What does that pattern say about the designer you're becoming?
Structure
Do
Not That
Design Challenge 10
5 min present + 5 min Q&A. The presentation is its own design challenge.
Bring
Self-check
Can someone who never saw V1 or V2 be captivated in 5 minutes? Is the opening a hook, not a recap? Have you cut everything that isn’t doing work?
A working session: finish your Dear Data drawings, share collections with classmates, get portfolio feedback to take into your final week.
Before class (between 6/1 and 6/3)
Review your projects in this course plus portfolio-able work from other courses or prior projects. Add them to the Week 1 Dear Data spreadsheet you started for the SEMINAL challenge. Re-tag using the same process. Consider adding the concept tags introduced in Weeks 2–9 (Curation as Self-Knowledge, Going Deep, Useful Friction, etc.) to deepen the picture.
Due Tuesday 6/9 by 9am.
Read the README file in the folder first — it lists everything you need to submit, so you don’t miss anything.
See the Canvas announcement for extra hands-on office hours help, available Mon 6/8, 3:30–5pm.