IxD Portfolios @ Interviews: What Do You Do?

I'm curious as to how other interaction designers display and speak to their work on job interviews, and what techniques, devices, layouts, methods, etc. resonate with those hiring them.

I usually bring printed samples of my work and paperclip them together into different projects. That allows me to take all the flow diagrams, wireframes, etc. and spread them out on a table and talk about them page by page. I've gone on a number of interviews where a computer was not available to show my work, so this has worked out nicely for me.

What are some of the ways other IxDers have presented their work?

-- Jen Randolph
jen at jenrandolph.com
www.jenrandolph.com

A better question might be what do people who hire interaction designers want to see. And depending on the kinds of clients/jobs you're looking for this will change.

On the full-time job end, I can tell you as someone who has interviewed dozens of designers for full-time positions, portfolios are limited, especially if I'm interviewing for interaction design. First, they're not interactive. It's like a snapshot from a movie: it's missing a dimension. A URL to a website they've worked on, even their own, leads to much better exploration of how they think about design. Second, it's hard to know as an interviewer exactly who did what from looking at a portfolio. Not that a candidate is lying (though it does happen), but a website or product represents ideas from dozens of people and contributions from dozens of people - hard to figure out exactly why it ended up as it did or who deserves credit for what.

The best use of an hour interview with someone, with the goal of evaluating their interaction design ability, is to have them design things in the interview, with the interviewer as a mostly friendly collaborator. Portfolios can help here as they lead to questions like "What would you do differently now? What went wrong? What if your users suddenly aged 30 years, or I doubled your schedule - how would you redesign this? Go show me on the whiteboard..." etc. Design is an activity, and portfolios and most conversations they lend themselves to are passive. In an interview I want active, since the job is active. A good interview should give candidates a chance to show what they'd do in the job, rather than just describe what they've done in the past. A portfolio and proof of basic skills (wireframing, prototyping, etc.) should be covered in 10-15 minutes of a 60 minute interaction designer interview. They're basic requirements, not hiring credentials. I have never heard anyone say "These wireframes are amazing! End the interview - I'm hiring you now!" Unless of course their job was to spend 90% of their time just making wireframes - but so far, I haven't seen a job title for UI Wireframe enginner. But who knows.

Unless the designer is working in isolation (note: this never happens), their ability to talk about design, to debate and explore issues with other people, and to be persuasive is just as important as their design talent. If I don't get a candidate up on the whiteboard designing something, debating with me on different alternatives, even if it's just redesigning my office, my chair, their house, something, I'm failing them in not giving them a chance to show their real stuff. Frankly they could have the most amazing portfolio in the world, but unless their job consists of showing their portfolio to developers, markerters and clients, it really should not be the central focus of a job interview.

For clients, something I have less experience with, it's about credibility and proccess. As a client, I want to know the designer is credible, and that comes from references and how much good work they can show that is like the work I need. Flow diagrams, workflows, wireframes... that's all stuff I don't care about - why would I? Those are the designers tools, they're the means, not the ends, I wouldn't ask an architect, a catereer or a hair stylist to show me their tools, or interview them based on their tool knowledge - instead I'd care primarily about the results they're capable of, how reliable they'll be and if it's personality match.

-Scott

Scott Berkun
www.scottberkun.com

Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Jen Randolph
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 1:19 PM
To: discuss at ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Portfolios @ Interviews: What Do You Do?

I'm curious as to how other interaction designers display and speak to their work on job interviews, and what techniques, devices, layouts, methods, etc. resonate with those hiring them.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Jen Randolph jen at jenrandolph.com wrote:

What are some of the ways other IxDers have presented their work?

Hi Jen,

I have a small portfolio book that I bring to interviews. For significant systems, sites, or software, I'll include a single page from a design or requirements specification facing a single screenshot that shows how that requirement was delivered in the finished system. For smaller websites, I may include only a screenshot. I use the book for storytelling. Rather than expecting an interviewer to read through all the many pages of some whopping-big design specification, we flip through the book together and talk about how a project moved from design to reality. It helps an interview become a conversation, and lets the interviewer drill down into detail about a project that he or she finds interesting.

I include URLs on my resume, but have no expectation that busy interviewers or hiring managers will have visited them. Hope this is helpful,

Michael Micheletti

Scott:
Thanks for your detailed reply! I too feel much better about the interview when the interviewer has me design something on the spot. I can talk about my work until I'm blue in the face, but I feel like I can really show the interviewer my strengths if I'm sketching something out for them.

As an interviewer, though, I'd like to ask you this question: when a candidate for a job has come to your office for the interview, how do you like to see them present their work samples to you? Maybe a sketchbook, maybe a nice binder full of work, or something along my method - loose pages that can be spread out? Or maybe has there been any in-person presentation of work that has stood out to you in the past, and that you wish more candidates did?

I'm sort of trying to find out if there happens to be any sort of "standard" for this when it comes to the IxD field. Many of my graphic design friends bring a book to their interviews, and leave some samples and a business card behind; my motion graphics friends bring a demo reel. I want to know if something like this exists for IxD interviews.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37179

Along these lines, this discussion came up a lot this morning on Twitter -

Imagine a world in which you work full time creating a lot of deliverables, sketches, wireframes, sitemaps, task flows, user stories, but because of the NDA and various work product ownership things signed - you can never show
any work - none of your portfolio. Technically, having done this for 14 years now, ever single deliverable I have ever done is locked up behind some legal contract, and I am pretty sure that is true for most IxDers out there. So how do you walk into an interview - legally - when we can't show anything we've ever done. There is no "you can't show any of this proprietary work unless you are applying for another job, " - clause - and we are all guilty of this because sitting on the other side of the table - we all expect candidates to show a portfolio (even though we know they legally can't - so we are asking them to break a contract to get a job), and then before we give them a job, we say "We know we wanted to see your portfolio to get this job - but if you ever leave here, you can't show any work done here to anyone else - ever" It seems insane, hyprocritical, legally precarious if not bordering on pathalogical. Yet we all perpetuate this little "don't ask don't tell" policy as if everything is hunky dorey.

~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems"

Will Evans | User Experience Architect
tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill
gtalk: semanticwill
twitter: semanticwill
skype: semanticwill

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Jen Randolph jen at jenrandolph.com wrote:

Scott: Thanks for your detailed reply! I too feel much better about the interview when the interviewer has me design something on the spot. I can talk about my work until I'm blue in the face, but I feel like I can really show the interviewer my strengths if I'm sketching something out for them. As an interviewer, though, I'd like to ask you this question: when a candidate for a job has come to your office for the interview, how do you like to see them present their work samples to you? Maybe a sketchbook, maybe [trim]

This is particularly true for application design (my focus) versus website design.

Russell Wilson
Blog: http://www.dexodesign.com

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 15, 2009, at 12:35 PM, "Will Evans" wkevans4 at gmail.com wrote:

Along these lines, this discussion came up a lot this morning on Twitter - Imagine a world in which you work full time creating a lot of deliverables, sketches, wireframes, sitemaps, task flows, user stories, but because of the NDA and various work product ownership things signed - you can never show any work - none of your portfolio. Technically, having done this for 14 years now, ever single deliverable I have ever done is locked up behind some legal contract, and I am pretty sure that is true for most IxDers out [trim]

Good question. This is one reason it pays to work on projects that ship - then you can always show the stuff that made it out the door, which makes it easier to talk about the things that didn't.

By way of perspective, programmers have a similar problem. They can't show their code, algorithms, etc. so it's worthwhile to ask how the larger programming world handles it. Generally they solve it by talking through programming problems in the interview (whiteboards), or asking people to look at code, critique it, or rewrite it. But I'm sure there is always some discussion of proprietary knowledge - it's just up to the candidate not to go too far.

And lastly, this is another good reason to do pro-bono work, especially if you are a junior designer, as it's a way to build a portfolio that dodges the issues Will points out.

-Scott

Scott Berkun
www.scottberkun.com

Original Message From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Will Evans Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:35 AM To: Jen Randolph Cc: discuss at ixda.org Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Portfolios @ Interviews: What Do You Do? So how do you walk into an interview - legally - when we can't show

anything we've ever
done. There is no "you can't show any of this proprietary work unless you

are
applying for another job, " - clause

I was a hiring manager at a large agency for more than 10 years, and in that time I did hundreds of interviews and saw every conceivable sort of portfolio. A few thoughts on what I expected to see:

Per Scott's point on getting the candidate actively engaged in problem solving — I have used a variety of approaches like this over the years. The ideal interview for me is when the candidate is so engaging that I don't feel the need to resort to exercises. Conversely, sometimes I will jump to a portfolio review or a design exercise when I feel the interview is going badly and I want to give the candidate a chance to shift gears. One of my favorite exercises is to ask the candidate for a review of our own corporate website. It puts the person on the spot a bit and I can see how well they can offer constructive feedback.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37179

The problem is that you can't always show stuff just because it shipped. There are still issues with exposing parts of the ui to non- customers

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 15, 2009, at 1:01 PM, "Scott Berkun" info at scottberkun.com wrote:

Good question. This is one reason it pays to work on projects that ship - then you can always show the stuff that made it out the door, which makes it easier to talk about the things that didn't. By way of perspective, programmers have a similar problem. They can't show their code, algorithms, etc. so it's worthwhile to ask how the larger programming world handles it. Generally they solve it by talking through programming problems in the interview (whiteboards), or asking people to look at code, critique it, or rewrite it. But [trim]

In a standard one hour interview I think it is pretty easy to get to the heart of deliverables such as use cases, process flows, wireframes and even taxonomies and nav structures. A 30 minute white board session with some well thought out problem statements or project briefs help. Complex interactions aren't much help in static form anyway. I know I am in the minority here... but regardless of whether you are interviewing visual designers, interactive designers or information architects, if your are interviewing for user experience, I think you cane learn much more from conversation than viewing a picture book or web site (or resume for that matter).

None of this, however, helps the sometimes clueless (to IA IX UI and UX) recruiter. That being said... there are some very sharp recruiters that specialize in our field and subscribe to this list.

Mark

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Will Evans wkevans4 at gmail.com wrote:

Along these lines, this discussion came up a lot this morning on Twitter - Imagine a world in which you work full time creating a lot of deliverables, sketches, wireframes, sitemaps, task flows, user stories, but because of the NDA and various work product ownership things signed - you can never show any work - none of your portfolio. Technically, having done this for 14 years now, ever single deliverable I have ever done is locked up behind some legal contract, and I am pretty sure that is true for most IxDers out there. So how do [trim]

This has [mostly] been my situation for most of my career, as well...especially since I do a lot of work for start-ups, where the existance of the company is also under NDA.

On the one hand, I've been lucky to have a couple of Big Name clients that I worked for, and, most recently, a major head-to-toe redevelopment of an entire strategy plus execution, but for the most part, the Big Name stuff is....er....not my best work (usually, I've heard the mantra "just do it the way we've always done it. And yes, all the body text has to be grey" waaaaay too often.) The stuff that's interesting and good and represents a substantial contribution to a business is hidden away under wraps.

What do I do about it? I tell people the work is under wraps...and they wouldn't want me to show their stuff, so they'll have to deal with the fact that other people have lawyers too. I do now carve out an exception in my contract and consulting work that I can show printed-out color samples of X instances of that work to prospective clients who are past a certain point in the process of hiring me.

And I have a portfolio that emphasizes the process of the sites that I wish I never had to admit I worked on (but hey, the landlord is picky about his rent), rather than emphasizing the product. I also say things when asked about my experience like "I addressed [This Kind of Problem] for [This Kind of Company] by doing this or recommending this..." or whatever.

But even so, I basically have 15 years for which I can't show my best work and the work I can show is fairly pedestrian and basically illustrates my ability to wireframe or usability test or develop a use case rather than applying a full-range of User Experience tools.

On the other hand, when I interview, I ask people to sketch out how they would go about working a particular business issue — They can use post-its, white boards, sketch pads, computer...whatever, I'm not interested in their tools, I want to see how they think, and saying "I'd have to do some serious work over in this area because of..." is okay, as long as they know they're skipping something to follow their main narrative.

kt

Katie Albers
Founder & Principal Consultant
FirstThought
User Experience Strategy & Project Management
310 356 7550
katie at firstthought.com

On Jan 15, 2009, at 10:35 AM, Will Evans wrote:

Along these lines, this discussion came up a lot this morning on Twitter - Imagine a world in which you work full time creating a lot of deliverables, sketches, wireframes, sitemaps, task flows, user stories, but because of the NDA and various work product ownership things signed - you can never show any work - none of your portfolio. Technically, having done this for 14 years now, ever single deliverable I have ever done is locked up behind some legal contract, and I am pretty sure that is true for most IxDers out [trim]

Actually, the stickiest NDA I ever had to sign was for a product that shipped...it also ran only on a particular form of *nix (that no longer exists) so I couldn't even carry a laptop that ran the product.

And that doesn't even include the government stuff...

Katie Albers
Founder & Principal Consultant
FirstThought
User Experience Strategy & Project Management
310 356 7550
katie at firstthought.com

On Jan 15, 2009, at 11:07 AM, Russell Wilson wrote:

The problem is that you can't always show stuff just because it shipped. There are still issues with exposing parts of the ui to non-customers Sent from my iPhone On Jan 15, 2009, at 1:01 PM, "Scott Berkun" info at scottberkun.com wrote: Good question. This is one reason it pays to work on projects that ship - then you can always show the stuff that made it out the door, which makes it easier to talk about the things that didn't. By way of perspective, programmers have a similar problem. They can't [trim]

I absolutely agree, Mark. In fact, I think one of the major failures of the whole portfolio model is that human beings react strongly and vicerally to pictures, even when they're assessing processes. We are just as guilty as other people of thinking "I don't like the blue" when we see a screen, and even if you treat an interview as a design review, you're stuck with that original reaction and the candidate is stuck with trying to overcome it. More to the point, as you point out, complex interactions do not translate well to static formats, and User Experience is not principally about pictures.

When I'm interviewing, I tend to treat requests for a portfolio as an Employer Intelligence Test....A remarkable number fail.

Katie

Katie Albers
Founder & Principal Consultant
FirstThought
User Experience Strategy & Project Management
310 356 7550
katie at firstthought.com

On Jan 15, 2009, at 11:17 AM, mark schraad wrote:

In a standard one hour interview I think it is pretty easy to get to the heart of deliverables such as use cases, process flows, wireframes and even taxonomies and nav structures. A 30 minute white board session with some well thought out problem statements or project briefs help. Complex interactions aren't much help in static form anyway. I know I am in the minority here... but regardless of whether you are interviewing visual designers, interactive designers or information architects, if your are interviewing for user experience, I think you cane learn much more from conversation [trim]

I love that!

- Russ

When I'm interviewing, I tend to treat requests for a portfolio as an Employer Intelligence Test....A remarkable number fail. Katie

There are a few requests that applications and employers ask that are worth ignoring or sidestepping (IMO)... such as "salary range" in the first conversation. These are the sort of filters that you can use to weed out companies you will have absolutely no interest in working for. For me... the mention of genius or rockstar is one that also comes to mind.

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Russell Wilson russ.wilson at gmail.comwrote:

I love that! - Russ When I'm interviewing, I tend to treat requests for a portfolio as an Employer Intelligence Test....A remarkable number fail. Katie Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list . discuss at ixda.org Unsubscribe .... http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help http://www.ixda.org/help

"genius" and "rockstar" tend to be used more often than not by folks who may consider you one, but relative to them, the threshold is so low that a mammal with an intact frontal lobe probably qualifies. It's all relative. ~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems"

Will Evans | User Experience Architect
tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill
gtalk: semanticwill
twitter: semanticwill
skype: semanticwill

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 3:26 PM, mark schraad mschraad at gmail.com wrote:

There are a few requests that applications and employers ask that are worth ignoring or sidestepping (IMO)... such as "salary range" in the first conversation. These are the sort of filters that you can use to weed out companies you will have absolutely no interest in working for. For me... the mention of genius or rockstar is one that also comes to mind. On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Russell Wilson russ.wilson at gmail.com wrote: I love that! - Russ When I'm interviewing, I tend to treat requests for a [trim]

I had an acquaintance from Northern California contact me about a project and I said this sounds like an NDA situation.

Effective Date: 12/22/2008

Participant: Angel Marquez

In order to protect certain confidential information that may be disclosed by Discloser ("DISCLOSER" ) to the "Participant" above, they agree that:

1. 2. The confidential information disclosed under this Agreement is described as: website ideas, designs, keys to the magic kingdom. 3. The Participant shall use the confidential information received under this Agreement for the purpose of: website building, design, funky crazy coding, throwing things against the wall.
4. The Participant shall protect the disclosed confidential information by using the same degree of care, but no less than a reasonable degree of care, to prevent the unauthorized use, dissemination, or publication of the confidential information as the Participant uses to protect its own confidential information of a like nature.
5. The Participant shall have a duty to protect only that confidential information which is (a) disclosed by DISCLOSER in writing and marked as confidential at the time of disclosure, or which is (b) disclosed by DISCLOSER in any other manner and is identified as confidential at the time of the disclosure and is also summarized and designated as confidential in a written memorandum delivered to the Participant within 30 days of the disclosure.
6. This Agreement imposes no obligation upon the Participant with respect to confidential information that becomes a matter of public knowledge through no fault of the Participant.
7. The Participant does not acquire intellectual property rights under this Agreement except the limited right of use set out in paragraph 2 above. 8. DISCLOSER makes no representation or warranty that any product or business plans disclosed to the Participant will be marketed or carried out as disclosed, or at all. Any actions taken by the Participant in response to the disclosure of confidential information by DISCLOSER shall be solely at its risk.
9. The Participant acknowledges and agrees that the confidential information is provided on an AS IS basis.
DISCLOSER MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE [snip]

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION AND HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL DISCLOSER BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH OR ARISING OUT OF THE PERFORMANCE OR USE OF ANY PORTION OF THE [snip]

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. 10. Upon DISCLOSER's written request, the Participant shall return to DISCLOSER or destroy all written material or electronic media and the Participant shall deliver to DISCLOSER a written statement signed by the Participant certifying same within 5 days.
11. The parties do not intend that any agency or partnership relationship be created between them by this Agreement.
12. All additions or modifications to this Agreement must be made in writing and must be signed by both parties.
13. This Agreement is made under and shall be construed according to the laws of the California.

fyi, that is what he sent me.