Show, not tell: How to make use of restricted or scrapped design work
How to transform design work restricted by NDAs or scrapped prematurely
"It sounds like they're cutting the whole project." My project manager said, creating a ripple of fear on the call. It wasn't my first time facing uncertainty around layoffs, but it never gets easier.
I still had a job later that afternoon. However, I was left with an equally important question that some of you have faced: do I put my scrapped project in my portfolio?
I hadn't signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for this one, but my portfolio was already a little light on projects due to them. Would my portfolio become even lighter, with years of hidden effort down the drain?
I was able to put that question off that afternoon, but I still wanted to dig around and find out. This is because it's a pressing question in fields like Healthcare UX, where you often work with sensitive information.
As it turns out, I found my answer through the articles I've written and copyright law: it's okay to talk about it if you transform it.
But to do that, you need to save a copy first.
Make a copy (with permission) to protect yourself in a remote age
What I say now may seem controversial, but it's necessary in the age of remote work. Get permission early on to use a project for your portfolio and make copies of your work.
When the general practice for most remote jobs is to cut off access to all documents a few minutes after you're laid off, you do not want to be in a situation where you have to e-mail and beg someone on your former team to send you some screenshots of your work for your portfolio.
I've mentored Junior Designers struggling to find their next job when they haven't saved screenshots, mockups, or prototypes from their internships or first jobs.
Copying company documents for your portfolio may seem like stealing from the company. So, if you're afraid of this, ask your manager (at the start of the project) for permission to put this work into your portfolio. They likely won't have a problem with it, especially if you're willing to anonymize data.
It's far easier to anonymize or transform your work when you have a copy of the data. You can blur out every piece of information on a page and still be left with something you can reference or tell a story around.
But if you don't have any of your design work, once your access gets cut off, you can only describe it vaguely. Imagine that you're talking with an interviewer and have worked on a project that is exactly like what the job is about.
Wouldn't it suck to only have a single screenshot, with no other documents, and be unable to reference your work? That's what happened to me before, and it only took one time before I started copying my work.
However, it may seem like a gray zone. So, to avoid any issues, you should follow an idea called "Fair Use."
To avoid any issues, transform your work
If you follow any YouTuber (or content creator), you may have heard about "Fair Use." This is a legal defense against copyright infringement, and one of the critical aspects is called "Transformative use."
I am not a lawyer, but the idea is that if you take existing work but you transform it somehow, then you can own it. This is why the original version of a song may belong to one person, but a remix of it (or another song that samples it) may belong to another.
This is how you can approach your design portfolio, especially if you're uncertain about showing too much confidential information. If you feel like blurring everything out isn’t enough, transform your work into another form.
Designers likely do this partially. Rather than putting screenshots of every design artifact from start to finish, they'll paraphrase a case study with some highlights. Or, they might skim through a few design artifacts to show they went through a process.
However, applying this transformation process to your entire project, especially if you can summarize the high-level points, can be incredibly helpful in telling stories about what you did.
Here are some ways you might transform your work:
Strip out design details and create design templates for your work
Record YouTube videos talking about your experience (generally)
Write articles about your experience (in non-specific terms)
Create Data Visualizations, summarizing key outcomes/points from your work
Create (professional) LinkedIn posts, tweets, or other social media about specific experiences
etc.
Remember, when you're interviewing for a job, they don't care about the details of your previous company. A Social Media company isn't going to know the first thing about the context around your Healthcare project. They care about the skills and experience you gained from that project and how you might apply them to their company.
As a result, a transformative effort is required to show how the skills, design thinking, and experience around that project apply to the job.
This is especially critical if you've signed an NDA.
How Practicing in Public helped tackle my NDA problem
Part of why I started writing weekly Design articles was because of NDAs.
I was in a weird situation where, due to NDAs, my portfolio was much lighter than it should have been. I had 7–8 years of experience in the field, but my design portfolio made it seem like I had about 3–4 instead.
I couldn't talk specifically about any projects I worked on, but I could talk about my experiences with the project and generalized lessons. As a result, I started practicing in Public.
Practicing in Public is a concept popularized by Austin Kleon, author of "Steal Like an Artist."
His main point is, "If your work is not publicly available by searching on the internet, it might as well not exist." It's harsh, but it's often true. It's why many recruiters and interviewers may think less of personal projects.
They have no way of knowing if the project was bullshit (i.e., 99% watching Youtube videos for 'research,' 1% trying to do something) or if you were busting your butt on 14-hour work days. The only possible indicator they might have is if your application or project was released to the Public, and many, like my scrapped project, may never be.
How do you get around this output-based issue? You practice in public. From medium-effort things like Writing articles or creating YouTube videos about the subject to lower-effort things like sending Tweets, you showcase your knowledge and experience through this practice.
For example, when writing my Design articles on subjects I've signed NDAs on, I've often had to go through several layers of abstraction to keep myself safe. For example:
I encountered X issue with Y company (I'll get sued if I write this)
Have I encountered this issue in the past with other companies? (I probably shouldn't write this)
Do other Designers run into a more generalized version of this issue? (I can maybe write about this)
What can general best practices, research, and my experience say about this issue? (I can write about this)
Through this process, I've shown that I know what I'm talking about, even if my portfolio isn't as dense as others.
What's more, practicing in Public and thinking about how you'd talk about your experiences helps you when it counts, i.e., when a recruiter or interviewer asks you about it and considers you for a job.
Transform your design work into your story
Part of why I'm writing this is because some people that I know got laid off around the holidays.
It's a shitty thing for companies to do: most companies won't be hiring until January at the earliest, meaning they'll be going through the holidays without any support and a lot of stress.
I was unexpectedly laid off and had my access cut off minutes later. However, because I followed these lessons for myself, I still had work to reference and bring into my portfolio.
Even for projects with NDAs, I've learned how to transform my experiences into works that show my knowledge (and avoid getting sued).
So, if you've ever found yourself with scrapped projects, work signed under an NDA or things you're not sure you can share in your portfolio, learn how to transform your work.
Doing so may help you tell a story about your work and show you have the skills for your next job.
Kai Wong is a Senior Product Designer and Data and Design newsletter writer. His free book, The Resilient UX Professional, provides real-world advice to get your first UX job and advance your UX career.