A practice project in your portfolio: show the process without inventing results

A junior specialist may have no commercial case studies but still have work worth discussing. Its value lies in understanding the task, making decisions and checking the result. Invented sales or testimonials only make the person’s real ability harder to assess.

Describe the context honestly

Say whether the project was educational, independent or collaborative. Explain the constraints: time, available data, tools and your own role. Credit any ready-made materials you used, and do not claim somebody else’s work as your own.

Then express the task in user terms. “Redraw a screen” describes the author’s activity; “help compare three plans” explains its purpose. Show the starting point so a reader can assess the change.

Explain two or three decisions

Choose moments when you compared alternatives. Why remove a field? How did you change navigation? Which option did you reject, and why? A brief explanation beside an illustration is more useful than ten screens without context.

Show the checks and the next step

Describe what you actually verified: several people completed the journey, the form works on a phone, or someone outside the team understands the text. Do not turn a small test into evidence of market success. Separately list what remains unknown and what you would improve next. This ending demonstrates that you can assess your own work without pretending to have built an established business.