# Content Design Portfolio I've designed and redesigned my portfolio on many different platforms, from HTML/CSS, Wordpress, Drupal, SquareSpace, Webflow, to Ghost CMS and now Obsidian. I've shared my portfolio as an interactive PDF, Miro Board, Figma, Omnigraffle versions as well. So, this is another personal project where I re-architected my portfolio on a documentation platform called Coda, https://coda.io/. I've shared this portfolio on several occasions with apprentices and peers. I consider it a nerdy enough of a portfolio that merits a write-up as a case-study. ![[20230903_CodaPortfolio_Home.png]] Caption: Screenshot of the homepage of the portfolio I created on Coda. The cover image is a screenshot of my UX career journey, from a talk I gave at the University of Washington. > [!NOTE] TL;DR > Check out the portfolio on Coda: https://coda.io/@lauggh/portfolio/ > Last updated 2022 March ## Aside: What is Coda? So, Coda is a collaborative documentation platform that brings together a number of tools that I use. For the purposes of this write-up, Coda brings together docs, spreadsheets, cards, and relational databases that would make the best of us have nosebleeds. ## Back to basics: What is the ask? I was prompted to share a portfolio and provide examples of my work in #InformationArchitecture and #ContentDesign. Being the architect that I am, I had to wonder, what's the difference between the two and where do you draw the line? In the work that I do, which is hardly ever so clear-cut in which discipline it belongs, I eventually revisited the Google Oracle to ask for the going definition of Content Design. At the end of the day, I'm still figuring out my definition of content design as I go along and solidifying the boundaries it has with information architecture. ## Content discovery: What have I done that might be considered 'content design'? Research comes first. Do I have an inventory of all my projects? Anything recent? Of course not. Any good 10+ year experienced UX professional would tell you that there's no time for a portfolio; there's no need for one! I agree, and yet I am malleable to succumb to making one more often than not. What *have* I done? What might count? Are they looking for website content design only? What about all the forms and onboarding experiences I've created for [[World IA Day]] events? Do those count? ## Structure the data no matter what The first order of business: how might I describe the projects I present? What attributes might I use? Let's pick out those attributes and set those in a table format and start from there. Recruiters and hiring managers are always looking for examples of deliverables such as #deliverable/SiteMap, #deliverable/ContentInventory, #deliverable/ContentModel. Well, technically, the recruiters ask if you have done them and it's the hiring managers who want to see the actual deliverables. ### Projects The project, also known as the case study, is the focus of a portfolio. Besides the narrative structure, which cannot be condensed into a bulleted list of metadata, here is the basic structures of a project that has prevailed in this Coda portfolio. - Content type: Project - **Project attributes**: - Project Name. Name of a project. May include parts of a client name or year. - Client - Date: Year that the majority of the project is completed in - Project Status - Primary Skills. here is a sample of skills taxonomy used. - #skill/ContentDesign - #skill/ContentOps - #skill/ContentStrategy - #skill/InformationArchitecture - #skill/InteractionDesign - #skill/ProductDesign - #skill/Research - #skill/TaxonomyDesign - Case Study Title. May be different from the project name since a project name may use acronyms Sample of the project database created ![[20230903_CodaPortfolio-ProjectIndex.png]] ### Writing Screenshot of the Writing page where I have a table of the long-form writing I've done ![[Pasted image 20230903223300.png]] - **Content type**: Publication - **Publication attributes**: - Publication - Pub date - Link ### Resume To be honest, I'm most impressed with how the Resume section turned out. The ability to group positions by company or organization resulted in this interesting layout where the role is called out along with a summary of the responsibilities. - Content type: Experience - Experience attributes: - Company or Organization - Role - Summary - Start Date - End Date - Employment Type - Location ![[Pasted image 20230903223625.png]]