How to Elevate Your Case Studies with a Story

A number of you have been reaching out to me recently about my UX Portfolio Sandwich Model, so I figured why not write my next newsletter about it!

Some of you may be wondering what is this method?

It’s a process I created to help design a case study in a way that flows and feels more elevated. It is a way to help you move away from the checklist style.

But why is this important?

Your portfolio should be your most important UX project you work on, in my opinion. So if this is the case, you need it to be one that shows your skill sets by engaging your reader to read more. And how better to do that than by creating a narrative or by telling a story!

So how does it work?

This method is broken down into three steps. These three steps I have outlined in through the description of a sandwich to help make it more fun. Hopefully you aren’t hungry, because it’s time to breakdown the sandwich!

As we all know, a sandwich is made up of two slices of bread and a filling. In this case of this method I am not accepting any healthy folks who think open face sandwiches are good (sorry!)

But seriously for this to work, we do need a traditional sandwich. Think turkey and cheese or even grilled cheese!

Now that we are all hungry, let’s connect these sandwiches to portfolios! Each case study should be made up of several sandwiches since each deliverable should be it’s own one. This way for each deliverable you share all the necessary information your reader needs.

Let’s break down the sandwich and start with the first slice of bread.

This part is the introduction to your deliverable. In other words, it’s the context about why you did that step or really what that step was. Usually, this step does get covered in a portfolio, but it’s still important to call out.

Next we have the filling. This is the visual aspect of the deliverable. This can either be a direct copy of the deliverable you created, or it can be an updated version. Either way, the goal of this section is to break up the text and provide your reader with more information about this step.

And to finish off our sandwich we have the second slice of bread. This is the most important part of this method and the one that honestly is usually left out. This piece of bread represents the summary or key takeaways of that one step. It is meant to help your reader understand how this phase of your process helped you get to your final solution. This step is also vital since it is what helps you get away from the checklist and more into a story. The reason for this, is it helps set you up for the next step or sandwich and create a more seamless transition between them.

Some of you may be a little confused as to how this actually plays out so let’s see this all through an example of a persona.

First slice of bread: Once we had conducted all of your user interviews, we were able to gain a better understanding of who our user truly was. As a way to make sure we all remained on the same page and in constant reminder of our user, we created a persona called Suzy.

Filling:

Second slice of bread: Suzy helped us to realize that we needed to focus on mobile since due to her busy schedule she is always on the go. This was an important realization for us since it made us pivot to design for a native mobile app as our sole product, rather than a website. This new information led us to create a user journey so that we could continue to understand Suzy’s busy schedule.

Now that you have seen how this method plays out, I hope it shows you how you can do this for your own case study!