Comments on: What does an Interaction Design portfolio look like?

By: Temi

Temi — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:51:47 +0000

I am with you on this Anita. I studied HCI and as you rightly said, most of what we were taught in school is about usability testing and evaluation. I would really love a job as an Interaction designer but being fresh out of school, I have no portfolio to show. Can I attend an interview for an Interaction Designer job without a portfolio? What do new graduates do?

By: Antia

Antia — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:30:38 +0000

Hi
I have the same questions when I started to look for jobs. So I found your article and that you studied HCI too =D

During my job hunting, somehow I feel that I should start to work as a web designer. Interaction Designer/UX designer seems to not be for a person like me who have no experience and have no fancy portfolio. The problem is that I didn’t get any training for designing web pages so it’s hard to compete with people who got real design training . The training I got from the school were mostly about usability /evaluation or other design theories. The link between a HCI graduate and a job seem to just disappear.

You seem to have passed the stage between study and work successfully, could you give me some advice about this ?

ps: I would like to write to you about this but I couldn’t find your email…I hope you don’t mind I leave a comment here.. I will be glad to tell you more about my background if you want to know. This is a great post … I am very happy to know I am not the only one who have problem about this.

By: Christian Beck

Christian Beck — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:21:24 +0000

Thanks! I guess I’ll have to revisit this post as I’m trying to update my portfolio again 4 years later. I’m sure I’ll have some other ideas!

By: visda

visda — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:15:48 +0000

Great post. Although I’m reading it several years after you have posted it, all the points you make are still very valid. I always have difficulties to show the personality and the process I go through on passive media such as a portfolio. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

By: kevin

kevin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:56:11 +0000

hello there!

got my own interactive portfolio!

http://www.kevinvanderkooi.nl

By: Christian Beck

Christian Beck — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:12:49 +0000

Jeez, I totally missed all these comments over the last year or so. Sorry bout that.

Rohit, what kind of links do you mean exactly? There’s some good responses to a similar topic right now on IxDA actually: http://www.ixda.org/node/25437

By: Rohit Mehta

Rohit Mehta — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:55:27 +0000

Please can u also post some link which can be useful for us..

By: Rohit Mehta

Rohit Mehta — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:54:39 +0000

Excellent!!!

By: Ananya Vetaal

Ananya Vetaal — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:47:28 +0000

hey..useful post…but I m wondering how do make a portfolio when I wasn’t involved in the projects for all phases of design cycle.

By: Sinan Ascioglu

Sinan Ascioglu — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:07:56 +0000

Hey great post bro,

I found your website while googling, and building my 14th re-design of my portfolio (this is becoming an obsession). Definitely, I am also struggling about the stuff you mentioned:
- show process but keep it simple (what a challenge)
- less text, more visuals (more ‘what is it?’) (this doesn’t get along well with above)
- damn keep a blog (oh that is so damn hard, I still couldn’t get used to keeping blogs)

Right now, in building the new design, I am trying to get inspired by two websites:
- frog design: http://www.frogdesign.com
I like their approach per project: challenge, process, result.
- Victor Szilagyi – http://www.semiot.com/
simplicity, nice short explanations.

Trying to find the balance in between. Definitely, interaction design portfolio is not only about the end result, but more about your approach, ideas, user-pov and solution providing. So, complicated stuff…