A Guide On UX Portfolio, Competitive Analysis, and Research Methods

Starting a UX design journey can feel overwhelming, especially with terms like portfolio, competitive analysis, and UX research being thrown around frequently.

Whether you’re applying for your first job or freelance gigs, your UX portfolio is your most powerful storytelling tool.

This article breaks down these essential elements in a beginner-friendly way and shows how they all come together to support a strong, user-centered design process.

What is a UX Portfolio?

A UX portfolio is a curated collection of work that showcases a designer’s approach to solving real-world design problems. It’s more than just visuals, it tells the story of your thinking, strategy, and design process.

For a UI/UX designer, the portfolio serves multiple purposes:

• Demonstrates design thinking and user-centered problem-solving
• Shows technical and visual skills through actual design work
• Highlights the ability to conduct research, collaborate, and iterate on feedback
• Reflects an understanding of business goals and user needs

What Can Be Included in a UX Portfolio?

Depending on your experience and interests, your portfolio can include various project types such as…

• Case Studies – End-to-end breakdowns of a product or feature design process
• UX Audits – Evaluations of existing products with detailed usability and experience recommendations
• UI Designs – High-fidelity visual designs showcasing layout, typography, colors, and interaction states
• Heuristic Evaluations – Expert reviews of interfaces based on usability principles
• Redesign Projects – Revamping an existing app or website and explaining the rationale
• Conceptual Projects – Self-initiated or practice projects that demonstrate design skills and creativity

Each case study or project typically includes:

• Project Overview
• Problem Statement
• User Research and Insights
• User Flows and Wireframes
• UI Designs or Prototypes
• Testing and Iterations
• Reflections and Learnings

Tip: Whether it’s a personal project or a client-based one, always focus on the “why” behind your decisions, not just what you designed, but how it solves a user problem.

Where to Host Your UX Portfolio?

Once you’ve crafted your case studies, the next step is to present them in a professional and accessible format. Beginners often start with platforms that are easy to use and widely recognized in the design industry:

• Behance – Ideal for visual storytelling and getting discovered by the design community
• Webflow – Allows for fully customized and responsive portfolio websites
• Personal Websites – Building your domain (like yourname.design) gives complete creative control and shows professionalism
• Wix – Beginner-friendly drag-and-drop website builder with plenty of design freedom
• Framer – Perfect for interactive and visually modern portfolios with built-in animations and responsiveness

Pick a platform that aligns with your skill level, design goals, and the type of audience or employers you’re targeting. At the end of the day, the platform doesn’t matter as much as how you tell your story and process.

What is Competitive and Comparative Analysis?

Before beginning any UX project, it’s essential to understand the existing market landscape. This is where competitive and comparative analysis play a key role.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis involves studying direct competitors — those offering similar products or solving the same user problems. This process helps evaluate:

• Features and functionalities
• UI patterns and usability
• Strengths and weaknesses
• User reviews and feedback

By doing so, designers can identify industry standards, gaps, and opportunities for differentiation.

Comparative Analysis

Comparative analysis involves studying products that may not be direct competitors but solve similar problems or use similar features, often from completely different industries.

The goal is to learn from the best practices of other domains and bring innovative ideas into your project.

Example:

Let’s say you’re designing a fitness app that helps users build workout habits.

• In competitive analysis, you’d look at other fitness apps like Nike Training Club, FitOn, or Cult.fit — apps that offer similar features like workouts, tracking, and fitness plans.
• In comparative analysis, you’d explore apps from other domains that tackle similar challenges like habit-building or motivation. 

For instance:

• Habit-tracking apps like Habitica or Streaks can give you ideas about:
  
  • How to motivate users with streaks or rewards
  • How to use gamification to keep users engaged
    
• Food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato might inspire:
  
  • Personalized recommendations based on past orders (which you can apply to personalized workout suggestions)
  • Smooth onboarding experiences or quick filters (which you can adapt for selecting workout types)

 The key idea: You’re not copying features — you’re analyzing the user experience, patterns, and techniques that could inspire better solutions in your own project.

What is UX Research?

UX research forms the foundation of user-centered design. It helps uncover user behaviors, needs, pain points, and motivations, allowing teams to make informed design decisions that address real problems.

There are two major categories of research:

1. Primary Research

Primary research involves collecting first-hand data directly from users. Common methods include:

Methods include:

• User Interviews – In-depth conversations that provide rich insights
• Surveys/Questionnaires – Scalable tools for gathering quick feedback
• Usability Testing – Observing users interact with a design or prototype
• Field Studies – Studying users in their natural environment
• Card Sorting – Understanding how users expect information to be structured

2. Secondary Research

Secondary research involves analyzing existing information. It’s especially helpful during the early stages of a project to gather context and validate assumptions.

Useful sources include:

• Industry reports
• Case studies
• UX blogs and articles
• User reviews from app stores
• Academic research
• Analytics data from existing platforms

Combining both primary and secondary research provides a holistic understanding of users and the problem space.

How They All Come Together?

Consider the example of designing a mental wellness app:

• Begin with UX research to uncover user needs and behaviors
• Conduct competitive analysis to explore existing solutions and identify market gaps
• Use comparative analysis to gain cross-industry insights for better engagement or personalization
• Combine findings from secondary and primary research to guide the design strategy
• Document the entire journey in a UX portfolio case study, showcasing the design process and outcomes

If you want to kickstart your UI/UX journey and learn everything there is to know about UX Design, consider enrolling in GUVI’s UI/UX Design Course, where you will master the most trending design tools, focusing on industry expectations and directing you to Fortune 500 companies.

Final Thoughts

Building a solid UX practice involves more than just creativity. It requires:

• A strong foundation in research
• Strategic thinking
• Clear communication

 — all of which are demonstrated through competitive analysis, thoughtful research, and an impactful portfolio.

For beginners, it’s perfectly fine to include conceptual or passion projects. What truly matters is the ability to 

• Articulate your design process
• Understand user needs
• Explain the reasoning behind your decisions

That’s what sets a designer apart.

Keep practicing, keep documenting, and don’t be afraid to showcase your unique process. Every project — big or small — is a step toward becoming a better designer.

References

1. NNGroup (Nielsen Norman Group) – nngroup.com
2. CareerFoundry UX Portfolio Guide – careerfoundry.com