UX portfolio case studies don't need to walk through every single step of your process, and trying to do that is actually working against you. This is week three of a five part series on UX portfolio myths, and this episode tackles a big one, the belief that every case study needs to show the whole end to end process for a project.
Sarah argues the opposite works better. Going deep into just one or two parts of a project beats trying to cram in everything you did, especially for projects that spanned six months, a year, or longer. Trying to show it all just skims the surface of everything and overwhelms the person reviewing it, which is the opposite of what you want.
She backs this up with a clip from her interview with Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat, who said he's specifically listening for problem solving language, phrases like "I facilitated," "I unblocked," "I synthesized," because those signal maturity in how a candidate thinks, not just what they produced.
The bulk of the episode is a screen share walkthrough where Sarah rebuilds a weak case study slide by slide, showing exactly what it looks like to go from a shallow "next, I made some wireframes" slide into one that explains the problem, the decision, the reasoning, and the impact. If your case studies currently read like a list of what you did, this episode shows you exactly what to change and why.
✅ Why cramming your entire UX process into one case study actually works against you
✅ What Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat, said he's actually listening for in a portfolio walkthrough
✅ A live screen share breakdown showing the difference between a shallow case study slide and one that goes deep
✅ Why "next, I made some wireframes" is what Sarah calls a five alarm fire in a portfolio
✅ How to handle a case study for a project that spanned six months, a year, or longer without trying to cram in everything
✅ What questions your case study should actually be answering, beyond just what you did
✅ Why you might choose to highlight different parts of the same long project depending on the specific role you're applying for
🔗 Episode 187, Myth 1 of 5, on why you don't need three to five projects in your portfolio
🔗 Episode 188, Myth 2 of 5, on why your portfolio doesn't need to be a website
🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template