You will need large, high-fidelity layouts to use in your presentation. Say yes if you have layouts you can demonstrate, and they are of good quality.

When preparing:

- List all your layouts and arrange them on slides.
- It is okay to fine-tune your existing layouts if it helps explain the story better.
- If you are interviewing in English, but your layouts are in a different language, consider translating them.

HD layouts

Do you have high-definition layouts you can use in a presentation?

Since you are filling out this questionnaire honestly, please tick this box if you are 100% confident that the team wouldn't have completed this project without you.

A helping question, if you're in doubt: if it wasn't for you, what would this team miss? List what you've done, and if it suffices, this is the answer.

It is essential to highlight your input because much success comes from teamwork, and some candidates hide behind other people's achievements. Don't talk about projects you weren't deeply involved in as a designer.

Contribution

Can you clearly explain your individual contribution?

If you built a feature and it was launched, there is a high chance you’ve got some feedback from users or the team. Your designs might have affected metrics in one way or another. You could have learned what worked and what could have been improved.

The feedback from the real world is the best way to learn.  As the saying goes, ‘Experience is the best teacher.’

I think there is nothing wrong with updating the design specifically for a presentation based on learnings (this is still your design and interpretation of learnings).

Launched

Have *you* launched this project?

Having a prototype in your possession, preferably one you can share on your website, might help you build a portfolio or explain your design process or problem solution during the portfolio presentation.

I have seen presentations where designers built prototypes in Figma and turned them into parts of a presentation instead of showing static files. It requires a bit more effort but looks way more exciting and self-explanatory, while demonstrating craft and skill.

Prototype

Do you have a prototype that you can use during the presentation?

You have examples of VR or AR for mobile apps, glasses, etc.

AR/VR

Platforms: AR/VR

You designed a desktop app with GUI: macOS, Windows, and Linux. E.g. browser, media player, messenger, meaning whole apps or their parts.

Desktop app

Platforms: Desktop app

Your designs were made for native mobile platforms (iOS, Android, etc.). It can be mobile-only or a cross-platform solution, including wearables (mostly watches).

Native mobile

Platforms: Mobile app

You designed a web app (something users can interact with inside a browser). Usually, exclude landing pages and static websites, because they are a different kind of beast.

Web app

Platforms: Web app

Answer "yes" if you are really proud of your input for some professional reason: significant improvements, implementation speed, craftsmanship, XFN, 3D, visualizations, or awards. Anything profession-related.

It is okay to mention it in a presentation. Why have I added this question? I hope you will have more energy and enthusiasm talking about such a project. Anything that helps people boost confidence works!


Proud

Do you have a reason to be proud of your work on this project?

Designers often fail to communicate the problem statement of the user or business clearly.

If you can reduce the statement to one simple sentence without extra complications or explanations, it will make it easier for people to understand what you were trying to solve. It will help your listeners understand what you are talking about through the rest of the presentation or a case study.

If you have a lot of explaining to do, you probably lack a simple problem statement, which might signal to a listener that you have no idea what you were working at.

And yes, it is hard to explain the problem in one sentence, I know. But there's a trick! Answer this question: what would have happened to end users if you wouldn't have implemented this feature or project? The answer is most likely would be the problem statement.

Problem statement

Can you state a user problem in one sentence?

Qualitative or quantitative research results can be a good way of explaining your design decisions and why it was the problem in the first place. Some people call this approach as data-driven design, some people call it data-informed design. No matter how you call it, if you relied on any research to draw hypotheses from it or ideas for improvements, mention these data points in your storytelling.

Verification

Do you have user research or data analysis to support your design decisions?

A hypothesis guides you on how to design an experiment and what data to track and analyze. There may be multiple hypotheses—different ways to approach a problem—and it’s valuable to mention some of them, as well as how you prioritized which ones to test.

Hypotheses are either proven or disproven using research and experiments. They are a part of the Scientific method. If you used this approach, mention it to explain your thought process and enhance the context.

Hypotheses

Have you tested different hypotheses?

Usually, metrics are related to revenue, retention, speed, and customer satisfaction. Solving a problem should affect the metrics. Metrics are measurable and thus objective. Presenting this information will help you explain how you verified your solution. Has it solved the problem? How did you verify it? If you performed A/B testing, mention it to support your story.

Improved metrics

Have your designs improved relevant product metrics?

We can think of them as user-related metrics. You might want to show that the user is front and center in your designs.

For example, you might measure user satisfaction through metrics like the usability index, error rates, task completion times, net promoter score, or lifetime value. These metrics are often evaluated before and after implementation, across cohorts, or during user interviews and tests. Referencing these measures will help you show that your designs are user-centric and explain your approach better.

Improved UX

Were there any measurable improvements in the user experience?

Quality assurance testing after the dev team creates a build—how you provide feedback or report bugs

Have you participated in testing the final product for quality assurance?

Some designers participate in the product launch by working on marketing materials, from communication strategy and visualizations to media planning and polishing loads of banners or videos.

Marketing

Could you provide an example of working closely with the marketing team?

Collaborating with the user research team on defining experiments and narrowing down user goals

Research

Can you describe a time you collaborated with researchers on this project?

Engaging with the engineering team on building UI components, handing over layouts, discussing the most optimal and technically viable solutions, or even contributing to the codebase

Engineering

Have you worked jointly with engineers?

Cooperating with a product manager to prioritize tasks, manage stakeholder relationships, presentations, and so on

Have you partnered with a product manager on this initiative?

Working with content editors or copywriters to improve UX or storytelling within a product.

Content

Have you engaged with content specialists or editors on this project?

Collaborating with customer support before and after the launch to highlight problems and see how the launch affected users

Practice portfolio presentation for job interviews

Portfolio presentation is the only stage you can control 100%.

Set yourself apart from 90% of candidates.

Come prepared for job interviews.

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