UX designers count on their portfolio to tell their career story. But what happens when a promising project gets canned (or worse, cancelled)? Is the project completely dead? Or can you still showcase it in a portfolio? Presented at Toronto Film School's "Meet the Designer" Spring Event (April 2018).

1. What Happens
(to Your Portfolio)
When a Project
Fails to Launch?
Jesse Emmanuel Rosario
USER EXPERIENCE DESIGNER + RESEARCHER
@jemrosario

2. – UX (and design) truism
The portfolio is a
designer’s calling card.

3. Today’s Agenda
• The client
• The design problem
• The process
• The aftermath: What really happens to a
UX portfolio when a project fails to
launch?
• Conclusion

4. Our client was an independent coffee shop
based out of Toronto’s first co-working spaces.

5. “How might we simplify our
order fulfillment process
and make it a personal experience
for our customers?”
This is a User Experience + Service Design Problem

7. THE
PROCESS
(a.k.a.
How did
we do it?)
UX
RESEARCH
journey mapping
ecosystem research
ethnography
contextual inquiry
PRODUCT
DESIGN
collaborative sketching
wireframes
interactive prototypes
USABILITY
TESTING
“Wizard of Oz” test

8. STAGE 1
UX Research
Hanging out in our client’s coffee shops painted
a vivid picture of a branch’s customer, character,
and overall culture (a.k.a. ethnography).
“Ethnography observes people
in their natural environments
in order to understand their
needs.”
- “Ethnography” (from userinterviews.com)

9. STAGE 1
UX Research
All research data was used to create
journey maps that modelled order fulfillment for
staff, customers, and delivery persons.
It pinpointed efficiencies wherever possible.
workflow
efficiencies

10. STAGE 2
Product Design
As soon as the research was in, we began to do
collaborative sketching to flesh out initial
design concepts. Keeping it low-fidelity was key!

11. STAGE 2
Product Design
Laying the sketches out in mid-fidelity
wireframes puts some ‘skin’ into the design
while communicating that it can still change.
ORDER FLOW:
1. Home
2. Order screen
3. Add to order
4. Order summary
5. Payment received

12. STAGE 2
Product Design
Setting those wireframes into a clickable prototype
let us test how that product might feel like when used.
This would be crucial for the next stage - user testing.
MADE WITH

13. STAGE 3
Usability Testing
My Senior Partner prepares a test plan to test
drive our prototype.
ethnographic
research
journey
mapping
collaborative
sketching
prototyping usability
testing

14. STAGE 3
Usability Testing
My Senior Partner prepares a test plan to test
drive our prototype.
ethnographic
research
journey
mapping
collaborative
sketching
prototyping usability
testing

15. What’s this?
What’s happening?
Did the project fail?!?
Did I do something bad?
Did they not like us?
Should I start raising chickens on the countryside?!?

16. FACT:
Some projects
will not see
the light of day.

17. COUNTERPOINT:
But this doesn’t solve
the panic that sets in
for the designer
who WANTED to put
this project
on the portfolio!

18. The Myth of the
Final Product
The only thing you can put
in your UX portfolio is a
shipped product.
“Lie Lie Land” by street artist Bambi (London, UK)

19. You can still
showcase that
“failed” project
in your UX portfolio!
Case studies over “galleries”
Narratives over “showcases”

20. DISCLAIMER:
There are still going to be
design managers who will not
want to have anything to do
with a “failed” project.
“I can’t judge work that I can’t see…”
- actual quote from a Toronto-based Creative Director

21. What I’ve Done
• I wrote the case study!
Find it here:
http://bit.ly/uxlatte
• Followed the Narrative
Structure which closely
corresponds to the
Problem-Solution-Results
method used to tackle most (if
not all) interview questions.
• Problem-solving story;
NOT gallery!
IMAGE FROM The User’s Journey (by Donna Lichaw)

22. – Jared Spool
“A great portfolio is a
collection of the stories
that describe your best
work”

23. THANK YOU!
@jemrosario
jem@jemrosario.com
http://jemrosario.com