Climax

Rising Action Falling Action

6 Tips to Create a Great

Middle Part for Your UX Case
Study
The middle is the longest part of your UX case study, where you bring a recruiter through your
design process. After you’ve gotten the recruiter hooked with your introduction, you then have to
tell your story in a satisfying way.

In the middle portion of your UX case study, you should cover “rising action”, “climax” and “falling
action”. This way, you build on your introduction and tell an interesting story.

• In rising action, bring your reader through the strategy you took to solve the design problem.
Highlight the decisions you made and steps you took.

• In climax, highlight a “wow” moment in your project. This could be an unexpected insight, a
huge challenge or a moment when things clicked together. Don’t be afraid to dramatize your
story a little!

• In falling action, flow from your climactic moment towards your end result. After you discovered
a key insight, for example, things should gradually become straightforward. The light at the end
of the tunnel—your final product—should become visible.

Let’s go through 6 tips you can use to create a perfect middle portion for your UX case study.

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1. Arrange Your Story to Make it Coherent

Most design processes are messy and nonlinear—but your case study cannot be messy! So, you
should arrange your design story such that things progress in a meaningful way. Make sure your
recruiter can easily understand your project after they skim through your case study.

Re-arrange what happened if you need to, so your story flows smoothly. Whereas in real life you
might jump between the different phases of the design thinking process, you should present them
in a straightforward manner in your case study. Remember to tell a story that leads from rising
action into a climax, which then flows into falling action.

2. Explain the What, How and Why

As you show your design process, highlight the “what”, “how” and “why” of your steps. Whenever
you include a “what” in your case study, back it up with the “how” and “why”. Each UX deliverable
should contain a brief walkthrough about how you created it as well as what its purpose is.

It’s not enough to just show what you’ve created—for example, a low-fidelity prototype. You also
.
have to mention how you did it (e.g. with pencil on paper) and most importantly why you did it (e.g.
so you can test your design with users). Many people forget their why’s—but it’s so important .
because it shows you understand what you’re doing!

Here’s a sample sentence that contains the what, how and why; you’ll see that it doesn’t require a
lot of words at all:

I conducted video interviews with 10 users to develop a rich understanding of their sleeping
WHAT AND HOW WHY

habits and problems.

WHY

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3. Use a Mix of Visuals and Text

Use visuals whenever appropriate. Images, screenshots and sketches make your case study more
readable because they break up chunks of text. They also help you show rather than tell—that way,
you can showcase your process without spending too many words to describe it.

Show images, screenshots and sketches of your works in progress and UX deliverables. Display
early sketches, photos of Post-it notes used in a brainstorming session, notes from a user
interview, and so on. Remember to balance your images with text. Your case study shouldn’t just
be a gallery of images—and it shouldn’t be a wall of text, either. Use visuals whenever it helps show
your process; use text, such as captions, to elaborate or to explain why you did what you did.

4. Strike a Balance Between “We” and “I”

You should give your team mates credit whenever it’s due. For example, if you show a UX
deliverable that you didn’t create, you should make that known explicitly.

It also means you should take credit for the things which you have done. Recruiters need to know
.
exactly what you contributed to the project! Always make sure you’ve got the right balance of “we”
and “I”. .

5. Make Your Case Study Scannable

Most recruiters will scan your UX case studies rather than read them word for word. To make your
case study scannable:

1. Make sure your headings are signposts. This means that if you just read the headings in your
case study, you should be able to get a good idea of what your case study is about. If not,
rewrite your headings to help recruiters scan your case study.

2. Bold your keywords so that important points stand out quickly.

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6. Remove the Unnecessary

Every word you add to your case study is expensive! Aim to create a punchy short story rather than
a 400-page novel.

Make sure everything you include in your case study serves at least one of the following functions:

• It explains your design or thought process. For instance, you can afford to elaborate on a
challenge you faced if it helps you explain how you solved that problem.

• It moves your story forward. Your goal is to move towards your final results. If you find yourself
spending a few paragraphs to explain a single design decision, reexamine if it’s needed.

How Long Should the Middle Portion of Your UX

Case Study Be?
Unfortunately, there’s no definite answer. Recruiters typically spend around 5 minutes reading your
case study; however, they’ll skim rather than read every word. As such, there are no hard rules on
the right length of your case study. Furthermore, every project is different, and some are longer .

stories than others.

.

However, you need to eliminate all unneeded parts from your case study. For instance, don’t spend
paragraphs to explain your color scheme or typography unless your role is focused on visual
design.

In other words, just make sure your case study isn’t too long. Aim for a summary, not a
blow-by-blow recount of what happened.

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Do you want to learn more?
Learn how to use this template to your best advantage in our online course How to Create a UX
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