Yu Siang Teo

“What UX tools should I learn so that I can build my portfolio?” “How do I learn UX tools?” We get these questions a lot here at the Interaction Design Foundation. If you’re starting out in UX, you might have these burning questions, too. So, here, we’ll go through everything you need to know about UX tools and how to learn them. Buckle up—it’s going to be a fun ride! What UX Tools Do You Need for Your Portfolio? Well, it depends. We’re sorry, but there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Empathy requires us to put aside our learning, culture, knowledge, opinions, and worldview purposefully in order to understand other peoples’ experiences of things deeply and meaningfully. It requires a strong sense of imagination for us to be able to see through another person’s eyes. It requires humility so we can seek to abandon our preconceived ideas and biases. It requires that we have a heightened awareness of other peoples’ needs, wants, motivations and goals.

Your UX design portfolio is the key that gets you a job interview, and it is therefore vital that you include everything necessary in it. After all, a recruiter spends only a few minutes to form an opinion of you through your portfolio. If you’re new to UX, however, you might not know what exactly needs to go inside a UX portfolio. Fret not—we’ll examine the anatomy of a UX design portfolio to tell you what you should communicate through it and what you should include in it.