How to Safely Go Around the NDA and Have a Portfolio

[vennsolim]

Hello All,

I believe most (if not all) UX/UI jobs have us signing NDAs. After signing it, it made me wonder what is safe to take to my portfolio. I understand that we can take what is open to the public already; AKA it launched. What happens to those backoffice tool designs? Those admin tools that isn’t necessarily exposed to the public and only accessible to the paying customer. I know some companies keep them hidden from even their websites to prevent competitors from copying.

Is the only way to get those on my portfolio asking the company for permission? But you don’t want to make it awkward by making it sound like you are trying to build your portfolio to leave.

Also, what about concepts you created for the company that never took off? Is it the company’s property? Do I have any rights in including those in my portfolio?

Is this even something we should worry about?

Would love to hear what everyone else thinks or does.

[Piper_Wilson]

The conversation in this thread may have some useful information for you.

Who owns the rights to our work when we leave an organisation?

Guys, I have a quick question. I’ve been employed with an ‘employment contract’ (as it is called in Polish law) as a UX Designer. One of my first tasks was to create a logo(sic!) for the company. I created three logos, all of them different, out of which The Boss chose one and we went with it. It’s been public for a while now. Anyways, I’m leaving the company soon and I was asked for the previous versions of the logo. I mean… I know I did this while working for them but I still think this is …

[HAWK]

I spend my life signing NDAs, although they are for customers rather than my employer. (Which reminds me, I should start a topic on that.)

I think it’s always safer to ask, and having a portfolio doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re planning to leave. I think it’s good practice to have a current portfolio regardless of your employment plans.

[ux_dude]

Just put up your work behind a password protected page.

[mag_sobieszuk]

But how does it prevent you from breaking the law?

I left company almost a year ago and their product still hasn’t launched so the whole system I designed cannot be presented in my portfolio. That’s it. Too bad for me, obviously…
What I would do know (if I was looking for a job) is tweaking a few of the things of the design, colors, logo - obviously, labels on the buttons, maybe the whole functionality and still be able to put it into my portfolio. I’m wondering how this would be treated. What do you think?

[ux_dude]

I think you’re just being paranoid. Designers do this all the time. You don’t have show the entire project. Just write about your process and show some screenshots. If you truly don’t feel comfortable putting it on your site, just show it in person.

[HAWK]

I get the paranoia and I think it’s much safer to be careful here, but I do think that if you change out the branding and are sensitive about what you use, then you’re fine.

[lordmolesbury]

So I work in public sector and we can’t share anything; everything is locked down. No way could we put work up there and simply password protect it. We can’t even save work to the desktop on our secure laptops.

So anything on our portfolio has to be heavily redacted: no headings, logos or anything that can identify the project.

In fact today, this very thing arose as I was thinking the current project I work on would make an excellent case study. So the way i’m going to approach it is to tell a story but use imaginary proxies for the elements that were involved; no way can the project be identified.

Just tell the story.

[michael_h]

There’s a really good article about this here:

Is NDA getting in the way of your design career? – UX Collective

[HAWK]

That is indeed a great article. Some practical solutions. Thanks for sharing.

[UXdesigner]

So the way i’m going to approach it is to tell a story but use imaginary proxies for the elements that were involved; no way can the project be identified.

@lordmolesbury were you able to create a case study using imaginary proxies? I’m new here and don’t see a way of private messaging you, but I’d love to know more details.

[David_LeVack]

I actually just had a client email me twice in a week demanding and threatening legal action if I don’t pull down my wireframes/screenshots for a project he launched 2 years ago (which looks completely different from what we had created). He was always a pain in the tukus anyways, and thought he had a genius idea (it’s basically a carbon copy of 5 other services out there.) So I ignored his threatening tone and took out any mention of his company name in my case study (He has no legs to stand on, but he is a friend of my old boss who I like, so I played ball.) Most of the pages were already relabled and font and colors changed. So I took 30 minutes and rearranged the placement of elements on several pages and left it up. NDAs are facing increased scrutiny and some states have banned them altogether. This NDA is overly broad, has no expiration date, and covers even very general information.

In case you are curious about limitations on NDA’s:
"The party seeking to enforce an NDA has the burden of proving the other party breached and the resulting injury. If an NDA is challenged in court and determined to be unenforceable, it may affect the party’s other NDAs and may lead to those agreements being challenged. While the challenges of enforcing a particular NDA depend on its specific terms, some of the most common issues that arise when enforcing an NDA are:

• The terms of the NDA are overly broad.

An NDA must be reasonable to be enforceable"