Portfolio Tool Recommendations?

I’m looking for a good tool for rebuilding my online portfolio. Any recommendations?

Trying Adobe Portfolio & Remixer, I found I couldn’t get the control over the nav and layout that I want. Since this is the sort of thing I design, I think of it a demonstration of skill. Wordpress I found more promising, but it requires too much knowledge of arcane plugins, preferences etc. I created my last portfolio using HTML, but to do this now, I would have to do a lot of learning to catch up with state of the art.

I enjoy a moderate learning curve, particularly with a new tool that is helping me do something useful.

Thanks!

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I started using Wix and created a really simple, user-friendly portfolio. You can even password protect the pages if need be. It’s a much better tool than Adobe Portfolio in that there’s more control over the different elements.

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Woah! Great to see you @Rei_Hino – it’s been ages! What are you up to these days and what brings you back our way?

In my case, I use wordpress.org as a CMS and just use a portfolio widget.

My favorite trick is to create multiple portfolio pages. Have one public-facing one that you link to, but you can always create new pages elsewhere w/ portfolios curated to a particular client or job application.

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I used wordpress for mine and just purchased a template to start with that was closest to what I envisioned, then tweaked the code as necessary to make it look just how I wanted it to.

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I strongly recommend HTML, maybe with bit of CSS or even JS!
Not much changed in past years and everything you know should be even easier to do now. Their standards and best practice change in complexity and volume, but there’s no revolutions.

It will be of great benefit in your practice too, I bet. I did do a similar thing a few months ago and it was worth it. Result for your consideration https://jandu.top/ (yeah I love Figma now).

(rant) Isn’t it weird that most UX people don’t care about web technologies? We’re like the only designers who don’t know their medium. It’s like being a painter and never smelling colour or tearing paper.

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If you know HTML and CSS, you can build a nice portfolio site in a few days with Bootstrap. You simply link to their CSS CDN with a single line of code, which gives you access to all their components and a complete responsive layout system.

You then create a custom CCS file that overrides their standard settings when you need to. There’s very comprehensive documentation that explains everything and plenty of help on Stackexchange and other forums if you get stuck.

It takes a few hours to get your head round how Bootstrap works, but after the initial learning phase, you can get a responsive site up and running very quickly. Plus Bootstrap coding is a good skill to have for any UX’er, as you can use it to build code prototypes.

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I’m a big fan of WebFlow.io if you prefer to have something that’s relatively easy to make but is highly customizable. It’s good for people who have a bit of html and css experience but who prefer to interact with the site visually. But don’t confuse it with Dreamweaver- it’s kind of what dreamweaver should have been.

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Hi! You might laugh at this but I’ve built my portfolio in Axure! Yes, Axure. But the reason is I had very specific needs. I was in a hurry to show a few UX case studies and I needed a quick and versatile solution. It’s very interesting because you are showing your Axure skills while explaining your process. It’s not something you would choose for a strong online presence, of course, but for my specific case it was perfect.

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Hi there, I am in the process of changing into UX, hence I don’t have a big portfolio yet. Would you say showcasing my work on Behance is fine for the beginning? I would like to move to my own website eventually but it seems like a lot of effort for not that much content for now. Looking forward to your thoughts!

If it helps, HTML and CSS are easier than ever before. I’d had a 2 year hiatus from the two and thought I’d be rusty when working on my portfolio recently but it came back very quickly and the flexbox generators really help.

Woah! I love that this topic has brought @redrobinmeyer and @gualteramaro back out of the woodwork! We haven’t seen you for ages. What brings you back our way?

:slight_smile: You know everything! Well, the truth is I read UX Mastery articles often, but I don’t come here for a long time, I guess this topic called my attention and wanted to participate.

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That’s great to hear. Did you come across it via a weekly digest email?

Yes, correct.

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I think UXers, like a DIY car mechanic, understand how to do a lot of things, as well as understanding overall principles. But as with a car, it takes a dedicated professional to deal with bugs (where I always struggle with my own HTML), customizations not supported by a framework, production at scale, etc.

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I’m using Squarespace :slight_smile:

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A post was split to a new topic: Interesting article about portfolio case studies

Is it frowned upon to use a template to build your UX portfolio site? I’m early career, so I’m focussed on building content for the site, but I do worry that a hiring manager will be turned off if they realize that I didn’t make all the interactive pieces of my site. Big deal or no?

(I’m deciding between Wix and Webflow, for very different reasons. I like that Webflow would allow me to add a lot more powerful features later. I think using Webflow (even with a template) would eventually improve my coding in the process simply because of how Webflow is engineered.)