UX/UI designer CV: case-study lines that lead to your portfolio

First job: choose three case studies before you open the CV

In design hiring the portfolio carries the evidence and the CV tells the reader where to look. So the order of work is reversed: pick the projects first, then cut each CV line out of a case study you can defend in an interview.

1. List every project from the last three years and write your real role next to it: led, shared, or supported.
2. Keep the ones where you can name a user problem, a method you ran yourself, and something that changed afterwards.
3. Aim for range across the three you keep: one research-heavy project, one about a flow or interaction, one about visual design or a design system.
4. For each, write down the number you would defend and where it came from: test sessions, product analytics, support tickets, or a team estimate.
5. Open every portfolio link in a private window. If a case study sits behind a password, check that the application form lets you add it.

Work you cannot show because of an NDA

Describe the kind of problem and your method without the client’s name, screens or figures, and say plainly that the full case study is available to discuss under NDA. Ask your former employer what you may show before you rebuild anything from memory. A blurred screenshot rarely helps; a redrawn flow with fictional content usually explains the same decision.

What hiring teams look at first

The UK National Careers Service profile for UX designers describes the day-to-day as working with user researchers and service designers, collecting business requirements, designing and testing prototypes, writing specifications and guidelines for developers, refining designs from follow-up research and making sure designs meet accessibility standards. It adds that a portfolio showcasing your work will help.

O*NET files the role under Web and Digital Interface Designers (15-1255.00). The first task it lists is identifying problems uncovered by testing or customer feedback, and its technology list includes Figma, Axure RP and InVision. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics describes digital designers as people who develop, create and test website or interface layout, functions and navigation for usability, and notes that candidates may not need specific credentials if they can show their abilities through prior work or projects.

• Links: do the case studies open, load quickly and read well on a phone?
• Role: is it clear which decisions were yours and which were the team’s?
• Research: is there evidence you talked to or tested with real users?
• Outcome: did anything measurable change, and is the source of the figure named?
• Handoff: can you show how you worked with engineers once the design was agreed?

No licence, no protected title

None of the official profiles read for this guide mentions a licence or a registration for UX or UI work in the UK or the US. Unlike architecture, where the title itself is restricted by law, anyone may call themselves a UX designer; the portfolio has to do the work a licence does elsewhere.

Case-study lines: four parts in one sentence

A line that a recruiter can scan in five seconds and a design lead can question for twenty minutes has four parts. Write them in this order and cut words until the line fits on two rows.

The problem, in the user’s terms

Name what went wrong for people, not the feature you shipped: “new customers abandoned bill payment at the biller search step” says more than “redesigned bill payment”.

Your part and the method

Say whether you led or contributed, and name the method you ran: five moderated sessions, a card sort with 30 people, a diary study, an audit against WCAG 2.2 AA. A method word tells a reviewer which follow-up questions to ask.

What changed, and how you know

Give the result with its source and its size. “Task success rose from 5 of 8 to 7 of 8 participants” is honest about a small test. “Conversion rose 4%” needs the period and whether other changes shipped at the same time. If the only figure is a colleague’s estimate, say so.

Example: case-study block and experience lines (invented designer)

Example only. Deniz Aksoy, Paylane and Kargoya are invented. The numbers are chosen to be plausible for a product designer with five years of experience, not taken from any real company.

Deniz Aksoy, Product Designer, Istanbul. Portfolio: denizaksoy.design (three case studies, no password). Below are the two blocks that sit under the profile line, in this order.

Selected case studies

• Bill payment for new billers, Paylane app (2024): led interaction design with one researcher; ran 3 rounds of moderated tests; task success for adding a new biller rose from 5 of 8 to 7 of 8 participants, and payment-related support tickets fell 22% in the following quarter. Case study: denizaksoy.design/paylane-bills
• One component library, Paylane (2023): audited 140 screens, merged two libraries into 64 Figma components with documented states and contrast checks; front-end lead estimates new screens now take 2 days instead of 3. Case study: denizaksoy.design/paylane-system
• Returns research, Kargoya e-commerce (2022): planned and ran 12 interviews and an open card sort with 30 customers; findings reordered the returns flow; returns started online rose from 61% to 74% over 3 months. Case study: denizaksoy.design/kargoya-returns

Experience

• Product Designer, Paylane (fintech, 140 staff), Istanbul, 03/2022 to present: one of three designers on the payments squad; works with 6 engineers and a product manager in two-week sprints; writes the handoff specs and reviews builds against them.
• UI/UX Designer, Kargoya (e-commerce), Istanbul, 06/2020 to 02/2022: designed the returns and order-tracking pages; ran the company’s first usability tests with a budget of zero, recruiting from the support queue.
• Junior Visual Designer, a digital agency, Ankara, 09/2019 to 05/2020: banners, landing pages and app store screenshots for 9 clients.

Why the case studies sit above the jobs

The reviewer’s first decision is whether to open the portfolio. Putting the three strongest projects first, each with its link, answers that question before the reader reaches dates and employers. The experience block then shows scale and context: team size, product type, who you worked with.

UX skills table, with the proof for each

Skill names from the UK government framework

The Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (page updated 28 August 2026) defines the interaction designer role in six levels, from associate interaction designer to head of interaction design. Its skills are design communication, designing for everyone, designing strategically, designing together, evidence-based design, iterative design and leading design. UK public-sector adverts often assess against these names, so mirror them when the advert does.

Accessibility deserves a line of its own when you have done the work. The frontend developer guide explains WCAG 2.2 and the laws behind it; here, say what level you designed to and what you checked.

Certificates: optional, and how to list them

Nielsen Norman Group’s UX Certification is earned by passing 5 courses and their exams, with each exam due within 35 days of the course. Five courses on one topic add a specialty: Artificial Intelligence, Interaction Design, Research or Management. Each certificate carries an ID that can be checked against NN/g’s public list, so put the ID on the CV.

• Write it as: UX Certification, Nielsen Norman Group, 2025, specialty Research, ID followed by the number.
• Place certificates after the case studies and experience, never above them.
• Leave out course-completion badges that anyone can earn by watching videos unless the advert asks for them.

Degrees, apprenticeships and bootcamps

The National Careers Service lists a degree in UX, product design, graphic design, HCI or digital media, college courses, and the Digital User Experience (UX) Professional Level 6 Degree Apprenticeship as routes in. BLS says employers may prefer a bachelor’s degree in web design, digital design or graphic arts. A bootcamp goes under education with its dates; its capstone project only goes into the case studies if it was tested with real users.

Sources checked on 13 October 2026

• National Careers Service, UX designer profile: daily tasks, routes in and the note on portfolios.
• O*NET OnLine, 15-1255.00 Web and Digital Interface Designers: tasks and the technology list.
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Web Developers and Digital Designers: the role definition, credentials versus prior work, and a median wage of $104,000 for web and digital interface designers in May 2025.
• Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework, interaction designer role: levels and skill names.
• Nielsen Norman Group, UX Certification: requirements, specialties and the verification ID.

Salary figures and course rules change. Open the linked page before you quote either in an application.

When this layout is the wrong one

• You spend most of your week writing production code: the frontend developer guide fits better, with live demos and performance figures.
• Your work is brand, print and campaign design: the graphic designer guide is built around briefs and deliverables instead of research.
• You are a dedicated researcher: lead with studies and their effect on decisions, and drop the visual design rows from the skills table.
• You have no client work yet: student and personal projects still need the four parts, and the test sessions must be real ones.

Applying abroad and next steps

There is no country guide yet written for designers. For the UK, the guide for international applicants covers right-to-work wording and the format British employers expect; the general guide to jobs abroad covers the rest. Write case studies in the language of the advert, and check that any figures you quote are allowed to leave the company.

If your notes on each project are in good shape, CitedCV can turn them into CV lines in English, Turkish or German. It writes only from the facts you give it, checks numbers against those facts and asks when one is missing; it does not know what happened in your projects unless you tell it.

1. Pick the three case studies and write their four-part lines.
2. Check every link from a phone, logged out.
3. Match the skills table to the words in the advert, then tailor the profile line.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. National Careers Service, UX designer job profilenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/ux-designer
2. O*NET OnLine, 15-1255.00 Web and Digital Interface Designerswww.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1255.00
3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Web Developers and Digital Designerswww.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm
4. Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework, Interaction designerunderstand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/role/interaction-designer
5. Nielsen Norman Group, UX Certificationwww.nngroup.com/ux-certification/