As a designer, creating a case study is a crucial step in showcasing your skills and expertise to potential clients and employers. A case study helps you tell the story of your design process, from research and ideation to prototyping and testing, and ultimately, the final product.

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If you're working on creating your case study, you'll need to consider several factors, such as the purpose of your case study, the audience you're targeting, and the structure and content of your case study. This can be a very tasking process.

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To make the process easier, Ogaga John, a seasoned designer and a mentor at the Geneza School of Design, curated a template that you can use as a guide when creating your next case study. It's a little unconventional but effective nonetheless.

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1. Set the Scene

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…

- What product were you working on?

- Who was your client or employer?

- What industry or business sector are they in?

- How long did it take to complete?

- Did you work in a team or alone?

- What was the size of your team?

- What role did you play?

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2. Paint a picture

Powerful human stories take different paths, but they all have one thing in common: overcoming adversity. Identify the enemy early in your story by explaining the problems you were trying to solve.

- How did you understand these problems and their root causes?

- What would solving these problems mean to them?

- What challenges did you face?

- Use research insights and performance data to bring this picture to life. When your audience clearly understands what was at stake and why, they can join you on your adventure.

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3. Take us on a journey

Explain your decisions to demonstrate your expertise. Share your thoughts at the time. Talk about your excitement about the work. The new skills and knowledge you would need to be successful. Your concerns about the challenge ahead.

- The way you approach challenges, How?

- How you inform your work with learning

- What you create with those insights are all important story beats that lead the audience through the design story.

- What design process did you choose and why?

- How did you interact with users throughout the process?

- How did you communicate with colleagues and stakeholders, share knowledge, and negotiate decisions?

- What constraints did you work with and how were they defined? How did you measure success?

- How did you deal with conflict when things don’t go according to plan?

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4. Researching

Explain your thought process and decisions to demonstrate your expertise. If you worked with user researchers, talk about how you managed that collaboration. Present useful examples of research insights to help the audience connect with subsequent design work.

- What did you need to learn to move forward?

- How did you plan and conduct your research?

- What research did you make

- How did you identify and understand your business goals and user needs?

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5. Designing

‍Don’t be tempted to include everything to show how productive you are. This may overwhelm your audience. Instead, select key flows and features that align with key user goals and actions to connect your design to the purpose.

- How did you translate business requirements into the design process?

- How did you collaborate with others to move from abstract concepts to working software

- How did you evaluate your work and seek constructive feedback?

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IF YOU HAVE — Show examples of artifacts from the entire project lifecycle — photos from workshops, diagrams and maps, sketches and wireframes— and draw your audience into the story. You were there. You actually did all of this. Let your audience experience it too.

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6. Dealing with conflict‍

This may be the most interesting part of your story. A peak moment that shows you are able to respond, adapt, and overcome adversity rather than someone who sticks to the recipe.

- What went wrong? {talk about the issue with the dev team and how I handled it}

- How did you react and change when things did not go according to plan?

- Where did you have to make tough decisions? When did you negotiate and compromise?

- How did you rally to get things back on track and save the day?

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7. Arrive at your destination

Your reader’s experience depends on two things: how they feel during the ups and downs, and how the story ends. This is the emotional core of a strong narrative. Whether it’s a classic resolution or an unexpected twist, you must have a clear ending.

- What happened when the work was completed?

- Did you solve the problem?

- What impact did your work have?

- What have you learned along the way?

- What would you do differently in future?

- How have you have grown and changed as a person and as a professional?

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Using this template as a guide, you can create a comprehensive and compelling UX case study that showcases your design process and the value you bring to the table.

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Want to use the notion template? Click here.

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You should definitely follow Ogaga John for more design tips and templates. You can find him on Twitter here.