The UX Teacher Prep Podcast

S2 Ep 5. My First Case Study: Crafting A UX Portfolio from Classroom Experience

• Zee Arnold • Season 2 • Episode 5

Share episode

Ready to transform your teaching skills into a thriving UX career? Join me, Coach Zee, as I share my personal journey from a 15-year teaching tenure to becoming a Senior UX Researcher in EdTech. This episode will equip educators with the tools needed to craft their first UX portfolio piece. By leveraging your current teaching experience, you'll learn how to tackle the unique challenges of portfolio creation, turning them into an opportunity to shine in the world of user experience and product design. Discover how to brainstorm solutions based on everyday problems and tailor your portfolio to fit your dream roles, whether in ed tech or beyond.
___


Text Me! 📱I’d love to hear from you! Click here to send me a message.

Resources:

  • Follow us on Linkedin, Instagram, and YouTube for daily updates and tips.
  • Grab your free UX transferable skills cheat sheet to get started on your transition journey to UX.
  • Ready to find balance and unleash your creativity? Explore uxteacherprep.com to see how we can support you.
  • Subscribe to our email list to be the first to receive updates about workshops and networking events.
  • Want to be a guest on the show or know someone who’d be a great guest? Sign up here.
  • Have ideas for a podcast topic you want to hear next? Email us at hello@uxeacherprep.com.
  • Don’t forget to scroll down and leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️review. Thanks for listening!


Coach Zee:

Hello teacher friends, welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast. I'm your host, coach Z. In today's episode, I'm going to take you step-by-step through the process. I used to create my first UX portfolio piece when I was switching jobs from teacher to UX and interviewing for those new roles. So creating a portfolio is hard work, and I feel like this is especially true for teachers, since we never had to create and present a portfolio to get our teaching jobs At least, I didn't, since I didn't have any experience in UX. When I started my portfolio, I was given the advice to try to create a UX project based on the work I was currently doing. So that's what I did. So if you're looking into UX roles and you want to learn how to use your current non-UX position to create a case study for your portfolio, this episode is for you. Stay tuned.

Narrator:

Welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast, the ultimate destination for educators who aspire to break into the field of user experience and product design. Your host, Zee Arnold, a 15-year teacher turned UX researcher, is here to guide, coach and mentor you through every twist and turn as you make your career transition into tech. If you're ready for a more satisfying career and lifestyle and you want the balance to unleash your creativity, this podcast is for you. Now for the show.

Coach Zee:

Some of you might have listened to season one, episode 15, where I gave a high level overview of how to build your UX portfolio as a transitioning teacher. But today I'm going to get more in-depth and detailed. I'm giving you the full rundown. Okay, let me start by saying that I did create my UX portfolio using a website. I used Wixcom. It was cute and a nice addition to my resume. I had the link on top and everything. But when it was time for me to actually interview, I had to make adjustments. I wanted the interview panel to know who I was as a person, and I love putting my personal touch onto things that I do. So I was told that I would be asked to walk them through two projects I worked on my portfolio site, actually had four projects on it, so what I did was I pulled two projects from my website, but I tailored them for the specific role and company I was applying for. Now, the way that I decided which projects to present was I chose the two projects that were most relevant to the role I was applying for and the type of company. So, since it was an ed tech company, I chose a project that was specifically from my education work in the classroom. And then another project that really showed off my UXR skills, since I was applying for a UX research role. All right, so now I'm going to walk you through how I actually created the project, and it's 10 steps. But before I get there, remember the slide deck that you're going to present for your presentation and your interview is going to guide you through the conversation that you're going to have, aka your interview. So set yourself up for success by even adding notes to your slides for yourself so you can plan it all out in a way that flows and makes sense. And if you actually want to see the PDF that I use for my interview to get the job that I currently have, I'll be walking you through that today and you can actually sign up for a career strategy call through my website and that's going to be linked in the show notes and the description box below and that's how you would get to see the actual PDF that I used to get the job that I have today. All right, now to the steps.

Coach Zee:

So the first step was to brainstorm problems I recently solved. So I thought about all the problems I recently solved in my life, in my work, all around me and I wrote them down. Okay, problems like problems in my church community, problems in my school, community, problems at home, anything that I had to kind of work out to see how I could solve a problem I wrote them down. Step two was I narrowed down to ed tech related problems because I knew I wanted to transition to ed tech. So think about problems that you've solved in your community, things you've helped family members do, or even things you've done at work, what relates to the role that you want to transition to. So you might be listening today and maybe you don't want to transition to UX research or UX design inside of an ed tech company. Maybe you want to go to a healthcare company. So think about something that can align to what you want to do.

Coach Zee:

Step three was that once I picked the problem, I wrote down my process. Now, for me, it was a project that I already worked on, so it was a matter of going back and connecting the dots to one, understand how it related to UX and research. And, two, identify the UX components of that project and remember UX stands for user experience, and I really do feel like user experience is hidden in most problems that we need to solve on a day-to-day basis. So think about the ways that you have improved an experience for other people, whether that's related to, you know, a medical office, teaching, a financial situation or otherwise. So the project that I was personally working on was that I was solving a problem that teachers were having while navigating a new LMS that we were using. So it was actually Google Classroom, and this was during the pandemic, when we had to switch to remote work and remote teaching. So step four was that I compared my process to the UX design process. So looking at my process compared with the UX process broadly and then the UX research process, so I wanted to see all the steps that I took to complete my project and how it aligned or didn't align to the UX research process.

Coach Zee:

And then step number five, I filled in all the gaps. So, for example, I had to go back and look through emails that I had received from teachers to create an empathy map based on what they were thinking, what they were feeling and what they were saying when they came to me expressing their pain points about that LMS. So it was a part of my process originally, but it wasn't something that I actually documented anywhere while I was in the thick of it, like dealing with the problem and trying to help teachers solve this problem. So, for the purpose of the portfolio, it was important for me to go back and get that information, put it all together and bring it in as a component of my portfolio to show my process, in other words, show your work. Step six was I created supporting evidence and visuals so think charts, graphs, pictures to illustrate the data from the project, and I included success metrics. How did my work impact the stakeholders involved? In my case, 100% of the teachers reported feeling successful using the new LMS. So my work improved engagement, satisfaction and retention on my staff.

Coach Zee:

Step seven was that I built out the study by typing it all up and the research format that I used was plan, research, analyze, then report. So I had to type all of that up and get it organized in a way that would make sense and that was the format that I chose based on the steps that I took. So when I was all done typing it all up, putting it into that slide deck, before I made it into that final PDF to present to the company I shared my work for feedback. That's step eight sharing your work for feedback. So I actually shared it with a teacher turned UX researcher who I met on LinkedIn while I was networking and she had kind of been mentoring me through the process of transitioning and giving me tips and pointers on the way, and I asked her if she would look at my portfolio piece and she said yes. So I then took her feedback plus my own feedback, and iterated on my work to make it more clear and concise. And that's step nine. Make sure that you get your work in front of somebody else's eyes who is actually in the UX research space. I know a lot of people that listen here have asked me to look at their work and I've been so glad to look at it and give you guys feedback on what you're presenting in your interviews.

Coach Zee:

Step 10. Finally, I added my personal touch and this is a bonus tip on how I made my presentation a bit more creative and personalized. So when you're interviewing for a position, it's your opportunity to show them your personality, who you are as a human being. People want to work with people who are likable. So if you have all the hard skills and experience required for the role, but you're a rude person or you're combative or you're hard to work with. You never smile, you never crack a joke. People are probably not going to want to work with you every day. So in order for a company to see if you're a good culture fit, you have to show them who you are as a person.

Coach Zee:

So what I did was I included a few extra slides in the beginning of my presentation to show who I am, three slides to be exact. The first was a basic introduction of my background and how I discovered UX research. The second was an about me slide to share pictures of myself and my family and show what I like to do in my free time. I like to jump rope, I like to travel, I like to cook with my family. You want to make sure that they can see that you are a human being outside of work and show pictures of that so that they could see who I really was. And the next slide was where I explained my UX philosophy.

Coach Zee:

How do I approach my UX work? What background experiences do I bring and pull from as I do my work? What are my underlying beliefs? So, as you can see in this slide deck, if you're looking at it now, I focused on my belief in inclusion and accessibility when I talked about my philosophy. For you, it might be something else. Think about your philosophy that you use when you approach your work, and that's what you want to talk about. You want to talk about that value that you bring to the organization and the angle that you're taking when you're approaching your day-to-day work.

Coach Zee:

So now let's recap the steps. First, I brainstormed my ideas. Then I chose a former project or you can choose a new project that centered on user experience. I mapped out my process. I created my visuals to show my data and success metrics. I typed it all up and organized it. I got feedback and revised my work, and then I added my personal touch. All right, that's it. I want to wish you all the best on your job hunt and, as always, if my show has helped you in any way, please let me know. Do not be shy. Click, text me below or drop a comment if you're listening on YouTube. Thank you so much for listening and take a moment to leave a rating. It really helps me grow and gets my podcast out to help more listeners. Until next time.

Narrator:

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this podcast, hit, follow and scroll down to leave a five-star rating. Then share it with a friend. If you're looking for resources to help you on your tech transition journey, head over to uxteacherprepcom. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at uxteacherprep for daily tips and motivation. Have a topic you'd like to hear addressed on the show? Send us a DM on Instagram. If you're listening on YouTube, like, subscribe and share. Until next time, be well.