Today on Design Life we chat about how to craft an effective case study. Sharing a project through a case study should involve telling the reader what you did, how you did it and most importantly why you did it, but often this storytelling is missing from the case studies we see. Join us as we dive deep into how to craft a great case study that shows off not just your project, but your skills too.
Remember that a case study is not there to cover every single element and piece of information about a project. A case study is telling a story about why the project was successful and what you added to achieve that success.
Think about your case study as a story you are telling to another designer, describe why the project was interesting, valuable and how it demonstrates one of your key skills. Go deep rather than wide, show who you are as a designer.
Start your introduction with a problem statement or a goal. Even if your project didn’t have a problem to solve, surely it had a goal. If you’re not clear on what that goal was, how will the person reading your case study be able to work it out?
A clear problem statement or goal should include a few sentences with context about the brand or app, the problem or goal and how you were going to measure success at the end of the project.
To make your case study more compelling, talk about what information you got from each stage of the design process. Use sentences like “Through user research, we discovered that…” and then describe how the information you gained gave your project a new direction. Show that you conduct user research not because you have to, but because you know how to interpret the information learned and how to implement it to improve your project.
01.38 – Catch up
06.22 – Case studies
09.15 – Starting with a solution
16.42 – What a case study is NOT
21.30 – Ending strong
25.04 – Show collaboration
