Portfolio Case Studies - Yea or Nay?

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Hello forum!

So I’m currently putting together my portfolio site, specifically the project/work section and I got to thinking about case studies.

Now I’ve seen portfolio sites that keep it super simple in terms of showcasing work (the FCC example portfolio comes to mind), most likely with an image, a title, and maybe a one line blurb on what it is. I’ve also seen sites that go into greater detail about each project with what the goals were, how the developer/designer went about meeting said goals, what they used, etc. Sometimes that info is presented via a hover effect, sometimes a full page is dedicated to mapping out the entire process from start to finish.

If you have the time, I wanted to get your opinions on the subject. Either what you ended up doing on your own personal sites, what you’ve seen others do, what you’ve thought might have been an ideal set up verses not. Is there a sweet spot between too vague and too wordy? If you had to hire someone on the presentation of their work alone, what would you look for?

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I vote for a Case Study, Details, Behind-The-Scenes writeup… whatever you want to call it.

A screenshot, title, and tech used sometimes is too vague. Very little information provided.

But having a dedicated page explaining the challenges you encountered and how you solved it, the tech used, tools used, or sharing some pretty technique you used for this project goes a long way to explaining you know your stuff well.

You can even go deeper and explain one or two concepts, including sample code snippets used in the project explaining the solution or technique. That would really set you apart from other developers.

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I second @owel . If you can clearly explain how you did something, why, the challenges you faced, etc., that will be huge for hiring people. Usually this has to be teased out of candidates in an interview, but if you can tell hiring people these things beforehand, it will really help in landing an interview. How a person works is really important when hiring a new team member, and it’s hard to get a good understanding of this from resumes and cover letters, and even interviews. The whole point of interviews is finding out how someone works. Case studies are golden :+1: :sparkles: .

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My main advice is that if you’re going to do it, do it well. Put a lot of careful thought into what you say, how you say it, and how it’s presented to the viewer. Treat each one as a mini resume: clear, concise, error-free, well organized, containing useful information that also makes you look good.

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I did it like this. For each project in the portfolio, I have:

  • a screenshot
  • a list of the tech (the stack)
  • a couple of sentences explaining what the app does in layman’s terms
  • bullet points explaining the key features from a coding perspective
  • stats for page load time, page size, performance score etc
  • links to the live site and the repo
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These are fantastic responses guys thank you so much!

I think I’ll go with the dedicated page route. It’ll take more time, but to me it’s time well spent in setting my best foot forward. I really love the idea of adding concepts related to a particular project with code snippets. There’s been a few times I’ve had to get creative when building a WP theme to incorporate some piece of functionality.

And definitely, if I’m going to do it at all it’s gotta be done right. Which is a little daunting but I’m excited to put together some first drafts :+1:

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