As you enter your new career as a UX designer, it’s helpful to begin working on your professional portfolio from the start. Think of your portfolio as a place to demonstrate your ability to create a great user experience! Actively working on your portfolio each time you learn something new or create a new design will help you be best prepared when you’re ready to start the job search later. When you’re ready, you’ll share your portfolio with recruiters to communicate your value and process as a UX designer.
Now that you’ve selected a website builder to help create your portfolio website, you can start to plan the information that will be included throughout your site. Taking the time to plan beforehand will help you more easily make design decisions later! The layout of your portfolio website should highlight the most important parts of your work that you want to showcase. The website builder you use will most likely have layout templates you can work from. As you choose a template, aim for a clean design that makes it easy to find and move through content, especially your work samples.
To help you get started, check out this list of elements to include in your portfolio website. You might have noticed these tips in action when you reviewed examples of entry-level UX designer portfolios earlier in the course!
- Name and personal logo (if you have one). Clearly list your name at the top of your portfolio website to help visitors easily identify whose work they are reviewing. If you have a personal logo, like a simple icon or a stylized version of your initials, you should consider including that alongside your name, too.
- Navigation menu. Navigation is how users move from page to page on a website. Keep the navigation on your portfolio website simple and easy to follow. For example, users should be able to reach the homepage of your portfolio website from any part of your site, and your navigation titles should be clear and accurate.
- Work samples. The focus of your portfolio website is to highlight samples of your UX design work. For example, you will create three projects during this certificate program that you can showcase on your portfolio website. When planning your portfolio website, be sure to choose a layout that will let work samples shine!
- “About Me”. Plan to create a page on your portfolio website where visitors learn more about your interests, experiences, and passions. You’ll create an “About Me” page for your portfolio website in an upcoming activity of the course.
- Contact information. On your portfolio website, it’s helpful to provide information about how people can contact you. For example, you should provide your email address, a link to your resume, and links to your professional online profiles (like LinkedIn), so visitors can contact you about potential job opportunities. Wherever possible, try to use professional-looking naming, like an email address of [YourName]@gmail.com. You can plan to include your contact information in different parts of your portfolio website, like a dedicated page or across the top, bottom, or side of your portfolio website.
- Color scheme. The colors in your portfolio can provide a more engaging user experience, and should reflect your personality and personal brand. We suggest selecting a small set of colors that work well together, like one primary color and one accent color. The goal of the colors is to support your content and personal brand, not distract from it.
You don’t need to have the content for each of these elements filled in yet. In fact, we’ll be helping you do just that through activities in this certificate program. For now, your goal is simply to have a clear understanding of the type of information that will be included in your portfolio website and start planning where you want to house each element.
Optional – Map your website’s content
A quick sketch of what your portfolio website could look like can give you a better idea of the right template to use from a website builder. All you need is a pen or pencil and paper to sketch out a basic layout of important pages.
For example, you could start by outlining the homepage of your portfolio website, and drawing where you think your name and logo, the navigation menu, and your work samples should go. Or, you could sketch an “About Me” page to visualize where you want to place an image of yourself, a description of your interests and experience, and contact information.
Don’t worry about trying to get fancy! Your goal is simply to start imagining what the layout of your website will be, so that you can utilize templates from website builders to their full potential. Use your creative skills and have some fun!
As you map the content of your portfolio website, consider answers to these questions:
- What will you include on your portfolio homepage?
- What elements, if any, do you want to include together?
- How many pages overall will you need, and what should you title each page?