Creating a Stellar UX Research Portfolio: Examples and Best Practices

User research is a crucial branch of UX and product design. Working in UX research requires specialist skills and knowledge. A UX research portfolio showcases your expertise as a researcher. Your portfolio provides proof of your skills, knowledge, and expertise, showing employers and clients exactly what you’re capable of. Building a stellar UX research portfolio takes work.

The bulk of your UX research portfolio will be based on case studies. It doesn’t matter where you’re at in your research career; a professional portfolio is crucial for showing what you’re capable of and building your personal brand. If you’ve got them to hand, you can also include testimonials from previous employers or clients. Your UX research case studies give hiring managers a behind-the-scenes look at how you work and approach different challenges.

How do you tell a coherent story and effectively convey the value of your work? How should you structure your UX research projects? In this post, we’ve compiled five awesome UX research project examples (as featured in real UX researchers’ portfolios) to inform and inspire you.

Key Elements of a UX Research Case Study

Each UX research case study should tell a coherent story, clearly showing what you did, how you did it, and why. As you can see, most UX research projects and case studies follow a similar structure. When creating your own UX research portfolio, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. And remember: the goal is to demonstrate how you tackle different challenges and to showcase your user research process in action.

Here are some templates and suggested guidelines that can be used in evaluating EERE sites and collecting your findings:

• Interview script (template)
• Interview/focus group report (template) - Example content for a PowerPoint presentation on your results. Presentations should use EERE's PowerPoint Templates.
• Usability review (template) - Suggested guidelines to use in evaluating EERE sites and a template for collecting your findings and reporting your results
• User research report (template) - Example content for a PowerPoint presentation on your results. Presentations should use EERE's PowerPoint Templates.
• Click analysis report - Example content for a PowerPoint presentation on your results. Presentations should use EERE's PowerPoint Templates.
• Statistics and search log report (template) - Example content for a PowerPoint presentation on your results. Presentations should use EERE's PowerPoint Templates.

Examples of UX Research Portfolios

Let's explore some examples of outstanding UX research portfolios and the key elements that make them effective.

Sahar Naderi: Prioritizing Usability and Clarity

Sahar Naderi is a UX researcher and service designer based in Washington, DC. Sahar Naderi’s UX research portfolio highlights several important best practices.

Key features of Sahar's portfolio include:

• The project summary at the top which clearly outlines the type of research carried out, Sahar’s role on the project, and the research objectives. This provides important context in a concise, easily-scannable format.
• The clickable menu with jump-down links. Sahar has prioritised usability and ease of navigation, like any great UX researcher would!
• The clearly labelled sections detailing each key step in the process, complete with visual proof in the form of mind maps, affinity maps, and data visualisations.

These elements contribute to a portfolio that is both informative and easy to navigate, showcasing Sahar's expertise effectively.

Mohamad El Hindi: Showcasing Business Impact

The MoveWash case study does an especially good job of communicating the business value of Mohamad’s work.

Mohamad's case study includes:

• A high-impact headline which summarises the project and ties it to a clear business goal: “Research and design to attract a new target audience for a car wash delivery service”.
• The business impact of the project is reported upfront, right in the introduction. Before expanding on his process, Mohamad states: “Our work has increased booking conversions by 300% while allowing our client to reach a user base that represents a lower operational cost.” Increased bookings and reduced costs?
• Strong storytelling. Mohamad narrates the project from start to finish, crafting a logical story that sets the scene, walks through his process step-by-step, and shares how he reached certain conclusions. It’s easy to follow and allows you to envision how the project unfolded.
• Key metrics and data throughout, consistently grounding Mohamad’s work in real numbers and clearly demonstrating tangible, measurable value that came from the project.
• The case study concludes with “Learnings and next steps”, where Mohamad reflects on the project and shares how it’s expected to move forward.

When creating your UX research portfolio, don’t focus solely on outlining your process. Report on the impact of your work in the project introduction-this is what we did and this is the difference it made, in a nutshell. You can then showcase how you got there throughout the case study itself. Clearly frame the goals of the project from a business perspective. Rather than simply stating “Our goal was to conduct in-person interviews with five users”, explain what the client or company wanted to achieve-such as uncovering pain-points in order to boost sign-ups. Translate your work into clear and measurable value.

Rüya Ince: Highlighting Passion Projects

Rüya Ince is a mixed-methods UX researcher based in the Netherlands. Rüya’s CaReD app case study demonstrates the power of the passion project. Not all your portfolio case studies have to be based on real client work.

Rüya and her team developed the CaReD app when taking part in the AI for Healthcare Hackathon 2021, hosted by Stratiteq and Microsoft. The app, which seeks to improve the patient experience for people with rare diseases, won the “best solution” award in the Empowering Patients track. So how do you showcase a passion project in your UX research portfolio?

Key aspects of Rüya's portfolio include:

• Clearly numbered sections outline the project in a logical order, starting with the design challenge (as set out by the hackathon), detailing the process Rüya and her team followed, and culminating in the final solution.
• The “Challenges we faced” section. Rüya goes beyond sharing her research process to also reflect on the logistical and collaborative challenges associated with the project. And, most importantly, she outlines how she overcame those issues-demonstrating her problem-solving skills in action.
• Relevant visuals throughout.

Rüya Ince’s portfolio teaches us several things about how to structure an impressive UX research case study-but also about what kinds of projects can make for great case study material. If you’re struggling to find projects to include in your research portfolio, be creative. Consider volunteering, taking part in hackathons, or working on a passion project-anything that requires you to solve an end-user problem through research. Then, document your work and add it to your portfolio just as you would for any other project.

With hypothetical or passion projects, you may lack real data-but it’s still important to think about the value your work could bring if it were to be implemented. Consider including a “What’s next?” section to reflect on how your proposed solution might take shape if you were to develop it.

In addition to specific UX research methodologies and techniques, it can be really valuable to share your approach to teamwork and collaboration in general. Rüya reflects on the challenge of scheduling team meetings across different time zones and how they worked around it. That’s a great way to show employers that you’re proactive and solution-focused!

Mia Blume: Emphasizing Organization and Clarity

Mia’s POP usability case study is no exception, presenting perhaps one of the most well-organised, well-written, and easy-to-digest case studies we’ve ever come across!

Creating a UX Research Portfolio: A Step-by-Step Guide

Key highlights of Mia's portfolio include:

• The UX tips nestled throughout. Mia is evidently passionate about empowering others to do great work (she has a whole “Learn UX” section on her portfolio where she shares useful resources), and including UX tips within her case studies is a great way to showcase that.
• The annotated visuals. Check out the “Competitive Analysis” visual where Mia has highlighted two main points of interest and annotated them with additional information. Smart!
• The “Reflections” section which is divided into industry takeaways and personal takeaways.

Clean, clutter-free design has a critical role to play when telling the story of each UX research project. Don’t underestimate the importance of white space, well-balanced text and visuals, and an easily legible font. In the same vein, think about how you present each piece of information. Run through your case studies with a critical eye, removing any unnecessary information and trimming the text down so that it’s skimmable and straightforward.

Eureka Foong: Thinking Outside the Box

While most UX research case studies follow a similar formula, you can still infuse a touch of individuality. For example, Mia takes the unique approach of sprinkling helpful UX tips throughout. Her UX research portfolio is available in PDF format-which can be ideal if you want to create custom versions of your portfolio to send to specific employers.

It also features an incredibly interesting UX research project focusing not on a product, but on developing a research culture within a company. This particular case study details Eureka’s role as the first ever Lead UX Researcher at Piktochart, a software company based in Malaysia. It’s delightfully concise-more like a presentation than a full-on case study. Eureka delivers all the essential information in an easily skimmable, digestible format. It presents the outcomes and value upfront.

Eureka’s UX research portfolio is a reminder to think outside the box. Product design is just one of many possible use cases for your UX research skills. If you want more (and interesting) material for your portfolio, identify a societal or organisational challenge and apply your research process to come up with potential solutions. No matter what kind of project or challenge you’re showcasing, you still need to include tangible artefacts to demonstrate your process. Brevity is key when presenting your UX research projects, but don’t leave out important details. Employers want to gain real insight into how you work and what you’re capable of-and sometimes that requires more extensive storytelling.

Getting Started

You can’t build a portfolio until you’ve acquired essential UX research skills and applied them to practical projects. Already well-versed in user research and want to get started on your portfolio? Short on experience?

Here are some additional resources that can help you with planning your tests and usability reviews:

• Test planning spreadsheet - Core planning document, used to keep track of research questions, user tasks, business goals, scenarios, and pre/post test questions.
• Sample questions for stakeholders
• Usability review (template) - Suggested guidelines to use in evaluating EERE sites and a template for collecting your findings and reporting your results

By following these examples and guidelines, you can create a compelling UX research portfolio that effectively showcases your skills and expertise.