webb.stella•11d agoProlific Poster

Shoutout to the guy who told me my mockups were too cluttered

I had this UX designer friend named Dave look at my portfolio last month and he flat out said my case studies were trying to do too much. I resisted at first because I thought showing every single wireframe and iteration proved how thorough I was. But after a few days I went back and cut about half the screens from my main project, focused on just the key user flow and one big pain point I solved. The before and after was pretty obvious - my bounce rate on the portfolio page went way down and I actually got a callback from a studio I'd been chasing for months. Dave was right, I was just hiding good work under a pile of noise. Has anyone else had that moment where a friend's critique stung at first but turned out to be totally spot on?

2 comments

2 Comments

wadepalmer11d agoOG Member

I mean, "cutting half the screens" sounds like you threw out good work just to fit someone's preference. Some clients actually want to see the messy process, not just a cleaned up version that hides how you got there.

ericjackson11d ago

Fair enough, I used to think the same way until I noticed my messy process was just distracting people from the actual solutions I landed on. Sometimes less really is more when you want someone to see the value, not just the busy work.