FAANG UX case study: Our story and 5 tips for you
Designers, case studies don’t have to be boring. Turn them into stories of you going on a journey to solve a problem. Use them to showcase your skills and passion! Make an impression!
7 years ago, my twin sister, Yunan and I were finishing our last year in college. Our dream job after college was to work at Airbnb’s Beijing office! However, we didn’t have any good UX case studies or internship experience. All we had were a few generic and mediocre case studies from a UX bootcamp we recently finished.
Determined to get our dream job, we spent 4 weeks of our winter break doing a personal project on Airbnb for Chinese travellers! We thought what would be a better way to convince the Airbnb recruiters than showing them that we can do the job? We LOVED working on the project and were proud of the outcome. After all the hard work, we got our dream jobs at Airbnb! Nah… joking, we never got any interviews from Airbnb. But! We got offers from Google and Meta (well back then it was Facebook)!
Fast forward to now, we’ve worked at Google and Meta for 6+ years, grown from New Grad designers to experienced Staff Designers, done 200+ design interviews, and seen hundreds more case studies outside our work.
Time after time, we see designers make similar mistakes — their case studies fall flat, lacking life and passion. To help them improve, we often use our own Airbnb case study as an example. Even though the project is 7 years old, its unique personality, storytelling and drive are still relevant in today’s job market.
In this article, in Part 1, we will share our case study. In Part 2, we will share 5 tips to help you improve your case studies. These tips are based on not only our own portfolios but also our years of interviewing and helping other designers improve their portfolios. We believe these tips, when internalised and applied well can help you save hours and get better roles!
Here’s a preview of our 5 tips to elevate your case studies:
- Know your goals and showcase the skills required.
- Treat personal projects as real industry work.
- Tell human stories — the 4 practical tips to ace storytelling.
- Make an impression by highlighting what you are most proud of!
- Improve your portfolio before applying to more jobs.
Let’s get started!
Part 1: The Airbnb China Project
We did this project during the winter break of our last year in college. In those 4 weeks, we only worked on this project, day and night. Honestly, our overall process was quite standard for a UX project — research, synthesis, personas, ideation and design… But while standard, there were a few things we did that helped us stand out later.
Highlights of our process
- We did real field research. We flew from Rhode Island (where we were living) to Los Angeles! LA is one of the most popular overseas destinations for Chinese travellers, so we went there to interview Chinese travellers on the street! Yeah… a bit extra for a personal project.
- We immersed ourselves in the world of Airbnb and Chinese travellers. We were SO into Airbnb’s mission “to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere”. We thought deeply about helping Chinese travellers become a part of this welcoming world.
- We documented our process heavily throughout the project. We set up a camera to film our whole research synthesis and ideation process across multiple days. We later turned the footage into a timelapse video and included it on our case study website.
These extra things we did during the project provided rich materials for our case study.
The case study slides
Turning the project into a case study was… messy, as expected. Lots of iterations until we were truly happy with every element in the case study. To showcase the final case study, we created a dedicated website (which is no longer live). For the actual interviews, we created Google slide presentations, which is what we will focus on in this article.
See the slides in full size here →
As you go through the slides, keep in mind that the key strengths of the case study are storytelling, drive and unique personality. Visual is NOT its strength. Don’t use this as your visual benchmark. Aim for better visuals.
Let’s go through the structure of the case study together.
First, we introduced the project and the design challenge: Localise Airbnb for Chinese travellers. We explained our motivation. We wanted to practise our UX skills, and we chose the topic because we are Airbnb fans, we are Chinese, and we love travelling.
Then we introduced our key research findings. We introduced them by answering the key questions — Why Chinese market? Why localise? How are Chinese travellers different from travellers in other parts of the world? And how does Airbnb compare to its Chinese competitors? We used different visuals to make the findings interesting and easy to grasp.
Now the LA trip! We flew to LA to stay at Airbnb and interview Chinese travellers on the street. This is usually when the interviewers’ eyes light up and get extra interested in our project.
We briefly talked about our process to synthesize findings and showed our process photos.
We then introduced the synthesised research findings through the story of a persona, in a comic book style. This is another moment when interviewers got extra interested. As we talk through the story, we can often see some smiles on the interviewers’ faces 🙂.
Following the storyline of the persona, we then introduced the solutions to make her travel experience much better! We explained what it is and how it fits into the existing Airbnb product.
Now the final designs. We showed one slide of our sketches and wireframes. Then we walked through our final designs, highlighting key elements and interactions (using recordings of prototypes).
To conclude, we highlighted the learnings from this project.
Again, you can see the slides in full size here →
Part 2: 5 Tips to elevate your UX case studies
Now that you’ve seen the Airbnb case study, we will use it as an example to introduce the tips. While the case study was from our college days, these tips are based on the hundreds of portfolios we’ve seen over the years as designers at Google and Meta. Hope you find them useful!
Tip 1: Know your goals and showcase the skills required.
When designers come to us for job search help, we often find that they are very unclear about their goals. We ask them, “Which companies do you want to work at?” They give us the vaguest answer, “Um… anywhere that wants me?”
When we started the Airbnb project, we had a very clear goal: to work at Airbnb’s Beijing office. This goal meant that we needed to show Airbnb-quality work. To achieve Airbnb quality, we kept comparing our work with Airbnb’s products and the portfolios of Airbnb designers.
If you don’t even know what you are aiming for, how do you know what you need to show? You can’t be unclear on what you want and expect to get lucky and someone will see your hidden potential, without you showing it…
Once you have your goal, your actions can be more targeted. Here are a few things you can do:
- If the company is hiring, of course, first look closely at the job descriptions. Think about how you can showcase the skills they want in your portfolio;
- Look up designers who already work at the company. See if you can find their website or portfolio. Benchmark your portfolio with theirs.
- Reach out to designers who work at the company for specific feedback on your work. Make sure you actually want to work at that company and you’ve done all other research. Be specific in what help you need from them and respect their time.
So, start by answering this question clearly, “Which companies do you want to work at?” If you want to join the world’s top tech companies (which we believe anyone can do with hard work), you better have a portfolio that is at that level.
Tip 2: Treat personal projects as real industry work.
Redesigning a popular app is a common approach new UXers take to add case studies to their portfolio, which we did too. It is a very reasonable approach. However, the problem is that many redesign projects are surface-level. They only add one tiny feature or make some small visual changes, which make little difference to the product and won’t be enough even as a case study. What sets a great redesign project apart is the depth of thinking.
When we did the Airbnb project, we treated it as if we were working at Airbnb already. When writing this article, we found these paragraphs we wrote back when working on the project, which explained the result of our work. We were truly immersed in Airbnb’s mission:
In the Airbnb project, we considered both the user needs and business needs. Of course, even as New Grad, we knew Airbnb would never actually build it. However, we genuinely believed that the solutions, on paper, aligned with Airbnb’s mission and advantage and would address Chinese travellers’ unique needs.
To do a great redesign project, here are a few tips to go beyond the surface-level feature changes:
- First, understand the background of the company — what’s the company’s history, mission and vision? What’s its business model? What are the key actions they want users to take?
- Understand the market — What products exist on the market? How does your chosen product compare to its competitors? What are its key strengths and shortcomings?
- Understand the users and the underlying user needs — Who are the users today? Are there any new types of potential users? What are their key goals and needs?
- Then, only then, dive into the current user experience of the product — What are the key tasks the product is trying to help users accomplish? How is the product doing that currently and how can it be improved?
Imagine, what would you do if you were the Head of Design, the Head of product, or even the CEO of that company? You will know that surface-level features will not deliver the result you want. You need to go deeper and look for more significant opportunities.
But of course, unlike a real project, you may not find all the data or context you need. That’s okay. Just try your best and if you still miss something, just say that more data on X,Y,Z would help in your case study. Make your best guesses based on what you know. (This is an important skill for designers working on real projects too!)
Your goal for a redesign project is to show that 1) you understand what drives a business; 2) you can identify what user needs will contribute to the business goal; and 3) you know how to help users fulfill those needs through good UX and UI. Treat your project as real work, go broad and go deep. Immerse yourself in the company, the product and the users.
Tip 3: Tell human stories.
One key strength of our Airbnb case study was storytelling. Even though we followed a standard case study structure, we told the story in a very human and engaging way which made it easy to follow and memorable.
Here are 4 practical tips to improve storytelling in your case study:
3.1: Tell your story as if you were telling it verbally to a friend.
When designers come to us with their case studies, they often have a few different versions of the work:
- A first version: a website or a presentation that follows a very generic case study structure, and is thus not that interesting;
- A second version: a formal verbal presentation that follows the website or presentation, which is… also generic and uninteresting;
- A third version, though: if we casually ask them about the project instead of asking them to “present”, they often share a much more interesting behind-the-scene story, with ups and downs, and emotions.
There’s this misperception that “professional” case studies should follow a certain structure, and should be formal and … boooring. If these generic case studies are humans, they are timid, robotic, whispering and afraid to show any emotion or passion.
Remember, interviewers are humans too (surprise!). The interview sessions are in between their many other meetings. They don’t need more “professional” presentations. They would be delighted to hear some interesting human stories for a change, as long as the case studies showcase the required design skills.
To make your case study more human, try telling the story of your project to a friend verbally. Think about it, if you were telling your friend about it, wouldn’t you talk like a human, with emotion and passion? Wouldn’t you call out the parts that you were proud of? Wouldn’t you want to highlight how your work is unique and cool? Give it a try!
3:2 Use your headlines as your narrator and hooks.
Once you’ve told your story verbally. It’s time to capture the narrative using your headlines.
The problem we often see in case studies is using headlines as section labels: “Research”, “Personas”, and “Solution”. Why?! Interviewers can easily see that’s research, that’s persona… There’s no need to waste the precious headline real estate to say something obvious.
Take a close look at how we used headlines in the Airbnb case study. We wrote the headlines as if we were talking to someone. These headlines acted as the narrator and hooks for our story:
Remember, interviewers and recruiters have VERY short attention spans. They likely make conclusions within the first few minutes of viewing case studies. What do they see in those minutes? The headlines! Capitalise on every word in the headlines! Interviewers should be able to get the gest of the case study, purely by reading the headlines, and they should want to read more after reading the headlines.
We can assure you, that improving your headlines is one thing that will improve your case study significantly right away. Do it, now!
3:3 Make every element count.
A case study is half successful when the headlines tell a good story. The rest is to ensure all the other elements support and enhance the narrative.
During the Airbnb project, we did lots of research, created multiple personas, and ideated a range of solutions… But in the final case study, we only included five research highlights, one persona and one core concept. We focused on telling a cohesive story and made sure every element had reasons to be there. Our slides were also very simple, intentionally so.
The common mistake we see in case studies is including everything in chronological order. For example, many designers like to include all the research findings and all the personas… even when some of them don’t actually affect the final designs…
Remember, case studies are crafted stories to showcase your skills. What interviewers are looking for are signals that this person understands what it takes to solve a design problem. They are NOT looking for what happened exactly, nor have the patience to go through everything and dig out the key elements. Show the most important things to make your interviewers’ job easier.
We know it is painful to leave some of your hard work out, but more is NOT better. Less is more. Triming the fat is a critical skill for designers. You need to design tight and engaging stories. When refining, ask yourself about each element, does this really contribute to the story? If I leave this element out, would it make a difference? If not, cut this distraction out!
3:4 Use a LOT of visuals. Interviewers are VISUAL animals.
The truth is, when interviewers view your case study, most times they only see 2 things: the headlines and the visuals. So, similar to your headlines, use your visuals to narrate your story too.
Our Airbnb case study used lots of visuals — we created charts and tables for our research findings, we used illustrations for the personas and we included many process photos. These visuals made our case study more interesting and easier to understand at a glance.
You can get creative to turn text into meaningful visuals. For example, you can:
- Turn research findings into charts and tables, and call out the key findings;
- Give your persona and their story a clear vibe (don’t just show a random profile photo and call it a day) — add an image of their environment, an image to show their moods…
- Add process photos and add lots of them!
“An image is worth more than a thousand words” — 100% true for case studies.
Tip 4: Make an impression by highlighting what you are most proud of!
If you’ve followed all the tips so far, you will end up with a quite good case study already, but now it’s time to take it to another level!
How do you want to be remembered by the interviewers? A designer who did everything right but nothing special? Or a designer who…
For us, two things in the Airbnb case study set us apart: the LA research trip and the illustrated persona story. As a result, we were seen as two driven design students, who went above and beyond to do a personal project and presented the story delightfully. Our work made a lasting impression on the interviewers.
In this tough UX job market, you have to show something worth noticing in your portfolio. Playing it safe is not enough. After your case study meets the baseline, don’t be satisfied and stop. Keep looking for your uniqueness.
One way to identify the spark for your work is to reflect on what YOU liked the most about this project. There is no absolute right answer here. If it’s something that YOU are excited about, your passion and excitement will show through in your writing and talking. To give you some ideas, this might be an unexpected finding in your research, a smart twist in your solution, or a unique challenge in your collaboration.
The other way to identify your spark is to reflect on the time when you told your story verbally, did you raise your voice for some parts of the story? That part could be your spark!
Once you’ve identified your awesome spark, don’t be shy to show it! Highlight it visually and highlight it in your headlines. If the interviewers only remember one thing from seeing your case study, that should be it!
Tip 5: Improve your portfolio before applying to more jobs.
“I’ve applied to more than 50 (or hundreds of) jobs, but haven’t heard back much. Where else should I apply to?” We’ve heard this from designers time after time.
Stop wasting your precious time applying for more jobs!
In our case, when graduating from college, compared to many of our peers, we applied for jobs late. When we were heads down working on the Airbnb project, some of our peers already had full-time offers from Microsoft, Google and other companies. We knew we wanted to work at top tech companies too, but our case studies were just not good enough at the time. We also didn’t have any tech internship experience. We were behind. But it turned out that spending the extra time to create a much better case study really paid off! The case study was our very concrete way to show that “We can do it and we can do it well!”
While improving your case studies, your skills — storytelling, writing and visual skills will all be improved in that process. It may be painful to iterate and reiterate. But, once you climb over that mountain and you have something you are truly proud of, you will feel so glad that you persisted. The improved skills you picked up along the way will benefit you way beyond the case studies.
Remember, applying to more jobs will not get you what you want. A better portfolio that demonstrates better design skills will. If your goal is to work at a top company, make your portfolio deserve that. Don’t settle for a mediocre portfolio. You can do better!
Closing thoughts
To recap, our 5 tips to elevate case studies are:
- Know your goals and showcase the skills required.
- Treat personal projects as real industry work.
- Tell human stories with passion.
- Make an impression by highlighting what you are most proud of!
- Improve your portfolio before applying to more jobs.
Some designers asked us “Would this type of Airbnb project still be enough to stand out in 2024?” Our answer was “In its exact form? We don’t know. But, with the same level of drive and determination, yes.” Some of the elements in the case study (e.g. visual) feel outdated, but the spirit behind it is not.
We know the UX job market is tougher than back in 2017 and the future for UX isn’t clear. But we believe that for those who truly want to be in this field and are willing to keep learning and improving, there is a future. Hard work always pays off.
Hope our case study and the 5 tips give you some new thoughts. When in doubt, ask yourself, “What am I most proud of in this project?” Then keep exploring ways to tell your story passionately and proudly. Your passion is your secret weapon. Let it spark and shine. Make an impression!
See our Airbnb case study in full size here →
If you want feedback on your case study, contact us at hello@yutongyunan.com or message us on Linkedin.
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