Natasha Shaw's Portfolio Project

During the CareerFoundry Intro to UX Design Course, you’ll build out a job-ready project for your portfolio. Here is a breakdown of graduate Natasha’s language learning app project, GoLingo! If you’d like to see more of her work, head to her website.

What inspired you to make a career change into this field?

I moved from graphic design into web design so there were already aspects of UX and UI design that I seemed to be applying in my daily work. What I like about UX is that decisions are not purely subjective; they are not made from assumptions and personal preferences (which can happen in graphic design and other creative fields.) You actually have to do research and back up your decisions, putting the end user and the business goals at the heart of those decisions.

For me, UX is vital in producing more meaningful and useful experiences, whether it’s a product, app, or website. Meaningful, impactful work is something that I have always wanted to focus more on—if I can be part of improving something about someone’s life, or the world, I’ll be happy!

What did you enjoy most about the CareerFoundry Intro to UX Design Course?

For me, hands down, it was having a mentor and getting helpful feedback from my tutor. I’d done other studying around the UX field before, but what was missing there was the feedback for deeper understanding of topics, and the opportunity to ask questions to someone working in the field.

What did you enjoy about creating your CareerFoundry portfolio project?

I enjoyed applying what I had learned in each task as I went along, this helped me learn much more effectively. Personally, I enjoyed developing my understanding of the UX design thinking process throughout the project; that was more important to me than having a complete app design at the end.

With regards to your new career and skills, what are your hopes for the future?

Meaningful visual design is what I love, so I hope to have a UX role with a focus towards UI design in the future.