<aside> 🔭 On a high level, the recruiters we interviewed said they look for the following components in a case study:
1. A high-level project intro or overview Adding a high-level overview helps recruiters gather context quickly and easily. Having this at the very top of your case study will help 'set the scene' for recruiters reading through your case study.
Enumerate your project team members (if any), project duration, platforms/devices you designed for, and skills that you used.
2. A clear rationale, as well as insight into your design decisions Understand and communicate the context of your work and clearly identify the problem you are solving for.
Show the tradeoffs you had to make, which features you prioritized, how you determined the information hierarchy of the product, and anything that shows the intentionality of your design decisions.
You may find later on in the interview phase that product designers will frequently question your intentionality to gain insight on: • How you frame a problem in alignment with the high-level business goals or strategy and why you decided this was a project worthy of your time and effort • How much design exploration you did to get to the solution • How detail-oriented you are in crafting the final UI, and more.
3. A sense of the design process Include actual wireframes to complement written descriptions of your design thinking process. This is also be an opportunity to flex your visual design and interaction design skills.
Explorations are undervalued and overlooked. Include the messier parts of your design process. This includes brainstorming exercises, whiteboard and paper sketches, archived wireframes and more.
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<aside> 🏗️ Primary components of a case study
Header • Title of your project • A preview image • Quick one-liner about the project (optional but recommended) • Details: project duration, your role, teammates involved, tools and/or skills used, platform (web, iOS, etc.)
Body This is where you narrate your project's design journey from start to finish. Include:
• Project overview An introductory paragraph that serves as a context builder for your project
****• Problem you're trying to solve Clearly define all the problems you have identified and which ones you are choosing to tackle
• Who your user is Include a summary of user research Ex: Interviews, personas, journey maps, ideation, user pain points
• Design process Include major design decisions and changes you made along the way, as well as sketches, features, and wireframes of major iterations (at medium-high fidelity). You can also talk about the challenges you faced during the design process on a high level.
• The solution and why you arrived at the solution Explain how the features you designed target the problems and pain points you previously mentioned.
• UI designs (optional) You may include branding, UI library, colors, and other purely visual aspects as well.
Footer • Next steps if you were to continue working on the project • Key takeaways and learnings
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<aside> 👍🏼 Best practices
1. Include lots of visuals to keep the reader interested "Use words sparingly – show, don't tell. This is a fine line because you don't want to be too sparse and not show detail, but think about how you can use images, animations, charts, graphics, stats wherever possible" – Lawrence
2. Start your case study with an image of the final result Have the case study be a back-story of the end result that you showed as opposed to making the reader wait until the end to see the final result.
3. Look at other case studies for inspiration on how to structure yours better *“Best tip I could think of is to use Cofolios for inspo!!! I got a lot of ideas from it, and it was a LIFESAVER” -*Jesse
You can find successful portfolios, case studies and resumes on Cofolios and Bestfolios for inspiration and best practices.
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<aside> 🙊 My project is under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), what can I do? Double check with your manager/employer about whether your project can be shown publicly or not. If it can only be private, our designers recommend 2 options:
Password-protect your project You can do this easily if you use a website builder. Make sure to give the recruiter the password; this could make or break your opportunity to interview if your recruiter doesn't have the password to your projects.
Prompt the viewer to reach out to you to learn more about your project Don't forget to include your email if you choose this option.
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<aside> 👉 Recruiting for your first internship
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