What does [the core challenge or question]
look like for [Client / Organization Name]?
[1–2 sentences. State the organization's mission, scale, and national/international significance. Then describe what you were brought in to solve. This is the context that makes the work matter.]
[Write in first-person singular. Describe your leadership scope: what decisions you made autonomously, how little supervision you worked under, and what you were responsible for that a junior designer would not be.]
- Sole UX lead — full ownership of research strategy, IA, and design direction
- Directed [N] junior designers throughout the project lifecycle
- Owned all client-facing presentations and stakeholder sessions
- Participated in hiring review process for [contractors / team members] on this engagement
[Name the organization's full mission, membership size, and national / international reach. Make this explicit — never assume the reader knows who the client is or why they matter.]
[Describe the business problem — not just the UX problem. What was at risk? Who was affected? What had been tried before?]
[Describe the stakeholder complexity you had to navigate: conflicting priorities, political or institutional constraints, timeline pressure.]
"Research, define and design [the core deliverable] for [the organization], serving [audience] across [scale or reach]."
[Describe your research approach. Who did you talk to, how many participants, how did you recruit? What made this research approach well-suited to this domain and audience?]
[Note any domain-specific adaptations — how you modified standard methods for a medical, scientific, government, or educational audience. This shows specialized expertise, not just process-following.]
[Describe your synthesis approach — how you moved from raw data to insights. Affinity mapping, atomic research, journey mapping, etc.]
Key finding that surprised stakeholders: [describe the most unexpected or impactful insight you uncovered]
[Caption: tool used, what it shows, your role in creating it]
[Describe artifact]
[Describe what you learned]
[User type defined from research]
[Describe how you structured the content system. For experience-based creation — a set of interrelated pages — explain the conceptual framework: why you organized it this way, what user mental models informed it, and what alternatives you considered and rejected.]
[Annotate: why this structure, what the key IA decision was]
[Annotate: what this tested, what you learned from it]
[Describe the 1–2 most important design decisions you made. Specifically include cases where you pushed back on a client or stakeholder direction and explain your reasoning. This shows autonomous judgment, not just execution.]
[Note cross-department complexity: how you collaborated with dev, content strategy, clinical, legal, accessibility, or other teams.]
Early concept — [what this explored]
Tested with users — [what changed]
Final — [rationale for key choices]
[Write in first-person singular. Describe what would not have happened on this project without your specific involvement, expertise, and judgment. Be direct — "I decided," "I identified," "I introduced," not "we."]
[Describe any original framework, tool, rubric, or method you created — even an informal one developed specifically for this engagement. "I developed a content audit matrix tailored to [domain]" counts as original contribution.]
[Describe how your domain expertise shaped decisions — your specific knowledge of this sector (medical, scientific, government, education) that a generalist designer would not have brought.]
[Describe what you directed junior designers to do on this project — the method, skill, or decision-making approach you taught or modeled.]
[Describe a situation where there was no playbook — you made the call, and explain your reasoning.]
- What would not have happened without me — [specific, named contribution]
- Original framework or model I developed — [name it, even informally]
- Approach I pioneered at the agency — first time [method] was applied to [this client type]
- Domain expertise applied — how my knowledge of [sector] shaped [specific decision]
- A decision I overruled or challenged — [brief description and outcome]
in usability testing
identified in testing
achieved
Before: [describe the key problem visible here]
After: [describe the specific improvement]
[Describe the business or mission impact — not just UX metrics. How many end users now benefit from this experience? What organizational goal did the redesign serve? Connect your design decisions to downstream outcomes.]
- Downstream reach — [N members / students / visitors / researchers] now served by this experience
- Business outcome — [member engagement / content usage / reduced support load]
- Accessibility — [WCAG level achieved / issues resolved / new audience reached]
— Name, Title, Organization
Direct quote or testimonial from client lead / executive director
Was this engagement renewed or expanded? Implicit validation.
Board / leadership / conference — who attended and their seniority
Presenting findings to [N] stakeholders at [Organization], [Month Year]
[1–2 sentences. Describe a specific decision you'd revisit with the benefit of hindsight. Be direct and specific — experts self-critique; junior designers don't.]
[1–2 sentences. Describe how this project influenced your methodology, approach, or thinking on subsequent projects. This builds the narrative of an evolving, expert practice across all 9 case studies.]
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