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The Ultimate Guide to Writing a UX Case Study That Converts

Writing a UX case study can be hard. There are so many ways to do it, and even more hiring managers and designers have an opinion on how to do it. How do you know which is the way to go?

Updated on May 8, 2024

That’s where this post comes in. I’ve been in UX for almost ten years now, and during that time, I’ve been on the job hunt myself multiple times while also helping companies hire the right designer.

It means I know a thing or two about the importance of UX case studies as a part of your UX portfolio and how to write one that converts into a job interview.

Writing a first quick draft.

To make writing a UX case study less overwhelming, I suggest starting with a one-paragraph summary first. It helps you pinpoint what’s actually important within your case study.

Here’s an example.

“As an entry-level UX designer at the Dutch Bank, I designed a new version of their mortgage calculation tool. Since then, the bank has seen an 8% increase in mortgage requests.”

This example consists of three parts.

What you did

We’ll discuss how to turn this paragraph into the full UX case study text later, but first, write down the one-paragraph summaries for all case studies you want to create.

If you’re an entry-level designer, one case study is enough. There’s no real set number of case studies you need. I’d rather read one strong case study than three ‘okay’ case studies.

Did you write your one-paragraph summaries? Great! Up next, it is time to turn those summaries into complete UX case studies . You can read about it on our website or watch how we approach this step in one of our 5-Minute Figjam Fixes below.

Sharing your case study

Now that you’ve written your case study, it is time to share it with your network. There’s one super important thing to keep in mind.

Writing and sharing your UX case studies is like a UX project where your case study is the product, and the people who can hire you are your users.

That means you have to design something (your case studies) in a way that helps your users (recruiters and hiring managers). You can do this by talking to your users.

You can do this in many different ways. Here’s a list of examples.

Share your first full case study draft with five (senior) designers and ask them for UX-related feedback.
Share your case study with five business owners and ask them if they understand what the case study is about.
Share your case study with recruiters and ask if they know companies that would benefit from similar work.

Doing the above will get you real-life feedback from different user types. Do this early on and often.

In a perfect world, you’d start with this when you only have the text for your case study. That’s because you can change text much quicker before it makes its way to Webflow, Framer, or another portfolio builder.

This way of improving your case studies based on feedback is never done. Even after working in UX for almost ten years, I still finetune my case studies often. However, you should see an increase in engagement (and possibly leads) after two or three case study iterations.

Presenting your UX case study

If everything is going to plan, you could have received an invite for a job interview by now. Congratulations, first of all! But how do you ace your case study presentation?

Here’s a list of tips and tricks to help you.

Arrive on time and test your audio, video, and internet before.
Position yourself in the middle of the frame.
Focus on the ‘jobs to be done’ of your case study.
Don’t tell everything right away. Start with a summary and allow your audience to ask questions first.

The final item on the list is especially important. If you tell too much right away, your audience might doze off. Also, if you tell too much right away, you take away your ‘easy questions.’

There’s more you can do to help you present your UX case studies , but the list above should cover most of it.

That’s everything you need to know about creating super-strong UX case studies. If you follow along from start to finish, you should be alright.

But if you need some extra help, please consider our additional resources below.

UX Case Study (Course + Template)

I’ll walk you through the steps of creating a case study based on my 10 years of experience in UX.

Video course and template.
Includes real-world examples.
Get personal feedback.

About the author

Hi! I'm Nick Groeneveld , a senior designer from the Netherlands with experience in UX, visual design, and research. I'm a UX coach that supports other designers and have completed design projects in finance, tech, and the public sector.

☎️ Book a 1:1 mentor meeting or let's connect on LinkedIn and Twitter .

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How to present a UX design case study

A well-written and formatted case study can make the difference between catching a hiring manager’s eye and being overlooked.

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Case studies are the cornerstone of any UX design portfolio. A well-written and formatted case study can make the difference between catching a hiring manager’s eye and being overlooked.

However, it’s not easy to figure out the best way to present a UX design case study, especially if you haven’t created one before. How much detail should you go into? How many images should you include? Should you only present polished final work, or should you show the iterations and setbacks you went through along the way?

This post will demystify the process of presenting a case study in your UX portfolio. While there is no one-size-fits-all method for creating a case study, these guidelines will give you a clear structure to follow.

We’ll first provide an overview of what a case study is, as well as a basic outline for writing them. Then we’ll dive deeper into each section that should be included in a case study, complete with real-world examples.

Here’s what we’ll explore:

What is a UX design case study?

How should a case study be structured, what should be included in each case study section, final thoughts.

[GET CERTIFIED IN UX]

A UX case study is a detailed summary of a project you designed. Case studies go beyond the polished final product of your design work to tell the story of one project from beginning to end. That means explaining through both text and images what the project was, how you and your team tackled the design problem, and what the final results were.

The objective is to give hiring managers insight into the way you think, including how you approach and solve UX problems and how you overcome challenges. This will help them understand how you’d fit into their UX team if they hired you. Each case study you include in your portfolio is a chance to showcase how you employed your strengths and skills as a UX designer at each stage of the design process .

As a result, the UX case studies you create will have a big impact on whether you are selected for a job interview. And, during an interview, you’ll likely be asked to talk about your case studies so hiring managers can learn more about your past UX design experience.

Case studies can help your UX portfolio stand out from other job applicants—but only if you can clearly articulate your design thinking and process through them. The best way to do this is to think of each case study as a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Each section of your case study should build on the previous section as you guide your reader from the inception of the project to your final deliverables. Along the way, you should include clear, concise explanations of what you did alongside images of the project. In addition, each section should be presented with a strong visual hierarchy so that readers can easily understand both the project and your contributions to it by scanning your case study .

Each case study will be different depending on the project you’re explaining and the details you’re highlighting. However, the following is a general outline of the main sections to include:

Introduction

The problem, process and iterations, final design solution, results and key takeaways.

Let’s outline the key information you should include in each section of your case study.

In this section, you’ll provide context for the project. This is often the part of the case study that readers will pay especially close attention to, so it should be brief but informative. You’ll start with an overview of the project, including the company it was for and the product that you were tasked with designing.

You’ll then articulate your role and responsibilities on the project. Be honest about what you did and how you contributed. If the case study is about something other than a client project, such as a project for a class, you should mention that too.

You can also include details about the project that you’ll expand on later — such as the problem you were presented with, how you and your team began to approach the project, and some information about the results of the design you ultimately delivered.

For visuals, you can include anything from the logo of the company you were designing for, a picture of the “before” state of the product if you’re detailing a redesign, or an image of the final product you designed.

A good example of a case study introduction can be seen in Yi Tang’s case study for a game discovery experience , designed for the gaming company EA.

Source: Yi Tang’s portfolio

In the introduction, he provides a good overview of the project, including the client and the goals of the project, and his role and responsibilities are clearly articulated. Most importantly, the information is easy to scan and understand.

This is where you’ll start to get into the specifics of the project by explaining the design problem you were tasked with solving. Why was this project valuable to both the product’s users and the company’s business goals? Include any research or competitive analysis data that helps explain why the project was important, including any surveys of users or usage data.

Source: Helen W. Bentley’s portfolio

Meanwhile, in her case study for Udemy’s online quiz experience , Frances Tung uses a combination of text and images to explain the problem and why a redesign of the experience was necessary for both the company and Udemy’s users.

Source: Frances Tung’s portfolio

[GET CERTIFIED IN UI DESIGN]

In this section, you’ll go into more detail about who your users are. This section is the place to showcase any user research that was done for the project, and is especially important if you’re applying for a position as a UX researcher . If that’s the case, you might want to include images of transcripts or other documents that specify how you used research to better understand your users.

This section should also describe any findings about users’ goals and needs when it comes to the product, and include deliverables such as user personas and journey maps.

For one example, check out Simon Pan’s redesign of the Uber app’s pickup experience .

Source: Simon Pan’s portfolio

User research was conducted to understand users’ pain points with the current app. In just a couple of sentences, Pan explains the study that was performed to capture how users were thinking about the app experience. Pan then describes the findings that came out of it.

For UX designers, this is the most important part of the case study because it’s a chance to demonstrate your design thinking skills, including how you make design decisions and how you respond to challenges and setbacks.

Here you’ll explain the steps you took to solve the problem and why different design decisions were made. Don’t be shy about detailing several iterations of the project as you got closer and closer to the final design solution. If you worked within specific constraints, encountered setbacks, or had to make compromises during the design process, describe those as well. They’ll help hiring managers understand how you respond to adversity.

You can include a range of deliverables in this section, including:

Whiteboard or paper sketches
Low or medium fidelity wireframes and prototypes

Of course, you can’t include every document showing every iteration the design went through. So choose some good representative examples to give hiring managers an idea of how the project progressed over time.

Source: Emily Yeh’s portfolio

This section is reserved for revealing the final design solution you arrived at. You should explain what went into any final design decisions, and include images of the final product (or high-fidelity mockups), as well as the final UX documents that you created, such as prototypes or wireframes.

One good example comes from Ariel Verber’s case study of a redesign for a movie ticket booking app.

Medium's example of a final design solution

Source: Medium

He uses both text and images of the final product mockup to clearly explain how his solution arose from his user research.

After you’ve presented the final design solution, it can be tempting to call it a day. But don’t! This final section will make a strong conclusion to your case study by explaining the impacts of your design solution (if you’re aware of them) and what you learned from the project.

For projects that have been launched, you should detail any results that demonstrate how the product improved the user experience and helped meet business goals. This could be analytics that show an increase in the number of users visiting or the average time spent with the product, metrics that demonstrate an increase in sign ups or purchases, or any data about improved user satisfaction you might have access to.

It’s also worthwhile to include a retrospective of the project that describes any learnings you took away from the experience. After all, no project is perfect. This is an opportunity to explain how working on the project helped you grow and evolve as a UX designer, including the next steps you’d like to take to make further improvements to the product, and anything that will influence how you approach other UX projects.

Source: Helen Bentley’s portfolio

Creating a UX design case study can feel overwhelming. But remember: you know your project best and should be able to clearly articulate it, both in writing and through images. While the focus in UX is often on designing deliverables, written and visual communication is also an important part of the job. A UX case study not only shows off your design thinking skills; it’s also a chance to demonstrate your communication abilities. If you can combine the two into a stellar case study, you’ll be all the more likely to get a hiring manager’s attention.

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