Co-Plan
by Chris James
A mobile app that aims to improve the lives of people in shared accommodation.
Methods
Face-to-face interviews in participants' homesWeb surveyAffinity mappingPersonasStoryboard
Student course projects
UX portfolio examples, written up honestly.
4 self-directed projects by UX Academy students: the problem they picked, the research they ran, what it told them, what they designed — and what did not work. Real beginner-to-portfolio journeys rather than finished agency work.
These are course projects, not client work. Nobody commissioned them and there is no client brief behind any of them. The client case studies — genuine briefs from named companies, presented back to those companies — are on the student work page.
The projects
Four projects, start to finish.
Each one is written from the student’s own project deck. Where a deck records no result, the page says there is none.
Garden Buddy
by Emily Corfe
A personalised gardening app that advises you on the best plants for your own garden.
Methods
User interviewsSurveysUser personasEmpathy mapsUser journey maps
Trading Skills
by Tim Penton
An app for trading skills with your local community: help someone for an hour, and get an hour of help back.
Methods
User interviewsUser personasJourney maps, mind maps and creative stimulusNABC analysisWeighted idea scoring
Music Services
by Amy, Paz and Louise
A concept for pulling several music streaming services into one place, so discovering music does not mean switching apps.
Methods
Written hypothesis and research problemInterview question sheetUser interviewsAffinity mapping into themesPains, needs, truths and behaviours board
Why publish these
Most portfolio examples online are finished work.
If you are changing career into UX, the question is not what a polished agency case study looks like. It is what your first one could look like — how much research is enough, what a persona is actually for, how to explain a decision you got wrong.
These four answer that, because they are exactly that: first projects, by people who had recently started. Two of them end without a result and say so. One lost two thirds of its team mid-project and put that on the slide. That honesty is the useful part, so it has been left in.
Want to build your first one?
Get the full curriculum and see how the projects run.