let's say you want a ux design job so you have started to apply at different companies you start filling the forms super excited and then you see this and you're like okay studies and in this video I am going to be answering that same question in this two-part series I will give you a step-by-step guide along with detailed checklists and free resources that will teach you how to write some amazing ux case studies so without wasting any further time let's get started all right so this is the complete guide to writing ux case studies the entire series is split into two parts today we'll cover the first segment where we will first understand some major major common mistakes that students make when they are approaching a case study and the biggest issue that I keep seeing is a lot of people are not even ready to write a case study so we'll first ask are you even ready to begin in the first place and then we'll figure out how to write the first half of your case study and I'm not just gonna throw Theory at you I actually had released a form where I took case studies from actual students so I have picked up examples I've picked up good examples and bad examples so I will be spending time showing you how other students are doing this right and incorrectly as well so you will have practical example and in the second video that we put out we'll go through the second half of building your case study and some free resources so let's start with module number one let's understand who gets a high paying job in the first place right like this is a more click-baity title so I thought I'll put this here see your case study is also a product right you are redesigning an app you're redesigning a product in your case study but even when somebody is going through your case study your reader is the user and that draft that you have created with your wireframes and your prototype that is also a product now when we design a product for our users what are some assumptions that we keep in mind we know that users have a terrible attention span right so you need to understand that for your reader what attracts them the most then secondly they want to see the output so if you're writing a case study that is very very heavy about your research and wireframing and user personas and this and that but very little about the output very little about the Prototype and the actual visuals the actual comparison if you're not showcasing the result how will your reader feel happy and then at the very end if it looks bad nobody will buy it nobody uses a product that looks unintuitive nobody uses a product that looks shabby right similar to a real product even in your case study you need to make sure that it is structured well that is visually appealing that the first impression is good so that you give your reader an incentive to complete it till the end now let's list out some major major mistakes students make while writing their first case study right so this is pre- case study mistakes that they make we haven't even started writing the case study number one they don't know the basics of user experience and psychology in the first place so they are hurrying this entire process of writing a case study thinking that even if I don't know something let me just write something with whatever I know that is very very bad you're just wasting your time you need to understand the fact that you can't solve problems without knowing the basics now I will be listing out a lot of issues for each of those issues I am giving a solution checklist so if you feel that you are still very weak in the subject of ux and in the subject of psychology you need to follow these three things first have you finished my foundations of ux design I have created a free course available on my YouTube channel 15 episodes in Hindi and in English have you finished those then have you finished the growth.design psychology models if not the case studies you really really need to finish all the psychology models discussed in Growth Store design if you don't know about this website I will put the link in description check it out then similar to growth.design we also have built for Mars and they have another list of psychology models you need to know all of these bases these are the foundations you cannot skip them then another big mistake is incomplete knowledge of figma students start designing UI on figma without knowing all the features end to end knowing your tool completely is very very important so the checklist is do you know components Styles Auto layouts and variants and within styles do you know color styles and typography Styles your shadows and your Strokes because if you don't know these things then how do you expect yourself to design something consistent and with the new figma config up dates they have also introduced new features in Auto layout they have introduced variables as well you need to learn these things first before you do any Hands-On tasks right so we recently uploaded a bunch of videos where I've shared these resources right so please make sure you finish these things then you need to ask yourself if you are finished at least I'm not saying completely at least 50 percent of the figma office hours playlist so on figma's YouTube channel just find this playlist called office hours you need to make sure that you finish that in fact they have also released a playlist called basics of Design Systems please finish these Basics first then on figma's website they have a best practices guide as well so you need to check all of these boxes to complete this issue on third we have students who just don't have enough resources to take ux inspiration so when they are designing something they actually start from a blank canvas without any inspiration whatso all they directly just start designing the make a list of problems and just start working on the pixels without recognizing the fact that inspiration and research should take the most amount of time when you're doing your homework right so do you refer the ux inspiration checklist now there's this huge huge list of websites that I have already shared in a video of mine it's called 10 ux design resources I have shared that checklist again I will share that entire list of ux and UI inspiration websites in the description please make sure you go through those summer free or summer paid mobin is very good for mobile there is SAS interface there is Page flows these two are really really good for web inspiration and I'm talking about products I'm not talking about landing pages right so when it comes to landing pages there's Landing folio there's a bunch of websites that I will mention in the description so you need to worry about that okay then have you documented all the important figma plugins and resources that I've shared right so in my 15 episode course in the very end the second last video shares all of these things right there's a video on plugins as well so you need to use figma plugins otherwise you'll be wasting a lot of time in doing nonsense right so there's content real there is sorter plugin there is batch renaming right there's similar there's unsplash there's so many plugins that will save you so much of time in the long run please start using those and then do your document all of your inspiration and references and learning on figma or on notion so even if you're not a notion user the way you collect all of your inspiration matters a lot right so I have created a few live streams on this as well as to how I document or my marketing inspiration please start doing that okay then in the second half of mistakes people don't understand the UI guidelines for the platform that they're making their app on so you can imagine the amount of mistakes people make before they even start doing the case study we haven't even reached the case study right so if you're designing an app for the iOS have you read the iOS HCI guidelines if you're working something for Android have you read the material design guidelines right so I will put the links in description for these things as well so to be honest fixing this would take at least one month incomplete knowledge of figma at least two months source of inspiration iteration you don't need any time for this this is on the go HCI guidelines you don't have to read all of them but just to know the basics just to know that these are the libraries I need to duplicate this is the tab bar this is the input for the numbers digits all of these things you need at least three weeks I think in my opinion and then working on fictional problem statements I keep seeing this issue again and again folks if you're solving silly problems you'll get silly prices it's as simple as that please solve genuine problems if you don't have genuine problems go to chatgpt tell chat GPT I am a student I need ux problem case studies this this is the domain that I'm interested in it will give you unlimited problem statements along with user personas so there's this app called notion Smith I've made a very dated reel on this on my Instagram but just go and check out notion Smith it will create AI generated user personas for you it's absolutely game changing then once you have chosen the prom statement are you very clear that you have chosen a relevant app that you have already used have you locked the device whether it's mobile or a computer or tablet and then the platform are you clear whether it's an iOS or an Android or a web app because these things are very very different so Google the differences between them and then stick to it right and then have you use the app yourself before redesigning because I see a lot of people just designing things from scratch in their first attempt in my opinion your first case study should be a redesign in Mobile iOS your second one should be a scratch from scratch design on the iOS mobile and then your third ux case study should again be from scratch but this time the Improvement would be really really high because your first from scratch case study would be terrible so this is the evolution that a lot of students follow so what I've done is I've created this entire checklist in the form of this A4 size sheet right and you would already know this that every single PDF of all our presentations it's available in the description right so please make sure that you download this PDF you can use this for your notes as well and when you are about to start your case study just follow this entire checklist ask yourself if you've done this you will easily need at least four to five months before you write your first ux case study I know it is difficult but folks trust me it is worth it if you really really want that one lakh rupee per month job or free or if you really really want a high-paying job you have to pay the price right so let's start with module number two let's understand how do you write the first half of your case study see there is no specific format this is not like a letter to the editor where you need to follow something very very specific the fundamentals remain the same right so there are three things that you need to do these are non-negotiable first you need to clearly Define the problem and the goal and don't solve fictional issues and when you are defining the problem keep things very very simple don't over complicate the problem don't add fluff stick to the point okay now show before and after the evolution right and focus more on the output than the research I see so many case studies three fourths of the case study is just about the user Journeys and information architecture and all of this research that they've copied pasted from someplace else sticky notes drawings and when I see the final output it is so so bad it is so disappointing the point is why are you working so hard on Research when you're not spending enough time on the final output on the final presentation right so this is the pareto's principle you need to focus on that 20 that gets you the 80 of the results so please make sure that if you're going through a redesigned case study show what was before show what was the after in the first half itself like show your reader why they should even go through this entire case study because they need to see that you have arrived at a good result and then they will be curious as to how did you arrive at this great result then at the very end please make sure that your case studies are easy to read and digest you need to make sure you have crisp copy don't over complicate your words don't use clunky paragraphs please make sure your visuals are on point if you feel that your visual design is really really bad please take inspiration there's a huge huge bunch of resources that I have mentioned in so many YouTube videos of mine there's a ux design resources video as well there's a marketing inspiration videos as well please collect those resources improve your visual design without good visual design it will be very difficult for you to impress your recruiter and then have to the point documentation please don't beat around the bush right and for detailed case study walkthroughs right so now I'm gonna show you good examples versus bad examples but for detailed walkthroughs you should check out some videos I will put them in the description there are some videos by Design pilot by mayank khandelwal from cred so he has this show called whiteboard FM okay and I was also a host for one of their Seasons right so on whiteboard.fm you have a long list of case studies that have actually helped Junior designers and students get really really good jobs so you will learn a lot if you watch those videos for reference now to make this video very very practical I'm gonna pick that one point that we just mentioned right clearly defining the goal so let's learn from some good examples right so this is a list that I had received from the type form that I had released and all of these people have given me permission to Showcase their work so on first we have Mahesh jaitani who created this behance case study on Coho housing mobile app right so let's see the first half right clean design you have co-living for creatives this is my title addressing the need of staying in well-designed houses that won't break your fds makes complete sense single sentence problem statement then when you go down or you actually have this one fold where he addresses the challenge as well and I really like the way he has collected multiple challenges now one thing that he could have done to improve this was to maybe prioritize One Challenge and then say that this is my main challenge to fix and then everything is a sub challenge but again really really good effort really really good design also I really want to point out that just because this person or all the other examples that I will show have done one thing right it doesn't mean that this entire case study was amazing on the contrary when I point out something bad in somebody's case study it doesn't mean that their entire case study is bad we are now picking a one one fold each one one component each and then learning from what they did right okay then there's another case study that was published on medium by Abhishek Gupta and the title is exploring variety a case study on ordering from multiple restaurants in a single order very simple to understand and very relatable right because this is a problem that even I have faced so I know that this is a good case study okay and see how he has formatted it he's not using big clunky paragraphs there's a proper hierarchy that is heading this paragraph he has boldened the right sentences he has also made it very conversational by calling out uh specific questions that you might have as a reader there was a reference that he had so it hyperlinked it here and you know basic basic stuff he has made everything into bullet points very well structured right there's one more example from yogesh Mithun he had created this case study on medium as well and I really really like the fact that he had created a very detailed deck before he wrote this case study so he was actually working for two people who wanted to get a website or done from him right so this is not for a mobile product or for a web product this is actually for a landing page but I really really like the way the process was communicated the way it was structured it was very clean very minimal the writing was very crisp right so I will put all of these Inspirations in description so that you can read and understand what they have done right okay now we have seen what people have done right let's take a few examples of where people went wrong these are the same entries that I got right in this case I'm not gonna reveal the name but folks uh if any one of you are featured here please don't feel sad okay you are not your work you are a different person your work is something different so even if I find some mistake in one part of your case study doesn't mean that your entire case study was wrong okay so please detach and please remind yourself that you are not your work okay so we're not going to take names here I don't want to make any students shy but kudos to those who were named previously right so in this case I'll tell you what is wrong okay this is example number one just this one this person first of all had a two column layout which is pretty distracting okay I would recommend you to keep things very very simple or just let it flow in a page in fact I always recommend people to write on medium and then embed it into notion and then you can create like a graphic designing version of the same medium article for B hands but to be honest medium is good enough right in the problem statement let's read it let's read what it says in 2023 there is still a lack of online Services offering Fresh Bakery delivery many people continue to rely on traditional methods such as visiting local shops and pre-ordering this can be time consuming and inconvenient for busy individuals the goal is to create an app that allows users to easily order fresh baked goods at their convenience with the added benefit of customization options now the question is why did this person pick this problem statement is this a real problem statement doesn't look like it because I don't think people will actually download a specific app when a lot of this can be solved by other swiggy or insta Mart or zomato right but let's just say that we will assume that this problem statement is a ledger problem statement if I were to cut this off and just keep this bad paragraph even this would make sense because we are talking about the goal and the problem statement could something be as simple as that the current food delivery apps like swiggy and zomato are not able to give end-to-end customization for Bakery orders this is a problem statement and then you define the goal right uh on right side again it says objective and goal and then I'm very confused if this is the goal then what is here so don't mix up stuff in your problem statement you should just have a single line from statement in the goal just have a single goal okay now let's take another example this time it says during the pandemic it was found out more and more people have started picking reading as a hobby not to forget with the wide array of books available to us each and every day a lot of people have started adopting reading as a hobby it is no longer confined to select a few people it is a hobby that is set out to grow even more but despite the fact people still struggle to finish their books and maintain a long-term hobby now see folks I'll give you a thumb rule if you can communicate something in five words don't even use 7 okay you need to be concise you need to be clear okay so there's a very important copywriting lesson that my manager taught me at zadel his name is ketan and he said that it is better to be clearer than being clever so clear is better than clever don't act too clever right so if I were to just say this people struggle to finish their books and they struggle to maintain it as a hobby this is a problem statement that would have been it why are we going through the pandemic and all of this extra sentences let's just stick to the problem so I really like the goal part to make reading a book a consistent Habit to give good recommendations so this is really really good and then the design process is also pretty good but not sure if this person even followed this right so don't write things if you haven't followed I think this person did because I've read through the case study so this person actually went through all of these things now another thing spelling mistakes this person forgot to make p capital and this case study is alive okay and even here you need to make sure that you check your spelling mistakes you do your grammar mistakes and please make sure that the formatting is correct so here apart from spelling mistakes if you're listing four problem statements you need to check which one is the major problem and that should be just one problem statement you can't solve four problem statements end to end pick one problem solve it end to end right and then don't talk about possible solutions talk about the solution that you have done so there are two approaches to a case study okay approach number one you show the problem you show possible solutions and then you discover one solution okay nobody has the time for this approach number two is way more crisp you say the problem you show your solution you show before and after and then you come back to the problem and say this was my process this is still better people don't have the time for you to just sit and read how you discover one's proper solution from a collection of possible solutions okay then this was another example where this person had used pop-ins and there were so many many problem statements and I was so confused as to which problem statement are we finally solving right and then please don't add these illustrations these illustrations Play No role please make sure that you don't add any of these distracting elements keep things very very simple and keep things minimum there was one case study that had underlined every single thing as a hyperlink this is so difficult to read this is so scary this is so difficult to identify why can't you just put something that says the link and make that hyperlinked and have everything normal because this is so difficult to read so folks please be very very careful about your visual design there was this one case study where the font size was so small that I could barely read anything and look at this thing right here this person has repeated pain points again and again why can't you just write the word pain points here right possible solutions gain Point gain Point gain Point why would you repeat the word gain point and no possible solutions tell me the solution that you have found and then tell me how did you arrive at the solution right even in this case if you notice the phone is so small I can barely see what is happening so not sure if this was created with a certain set or in mind if you were to write this on medium or on notion it would have been responsive right so this is a huge downside on working on B hands right now in this case problem statement is uh blah blah blah the problem statement is that identify that Instagram users are facing difficulty folks if you're working on your first case study please don't work on such successful apps I'm telling you if you're trying to redesign YouTube Instagram and Tick Tock and WhatsApp it's just too difficult you're making life difficult for yourself pick apps that genuinely have a terrible terrible experience I'm telling you it will be way more impressive and way more relatable now I have again made a checklist just compiling everything that we've discussed so far I don't need to go through these in detail but just to summarize right on medium and then embed them on a notion and make this URL public don't pick on big Brands either rely on your freelancer lines or some simpler projects show those do redesign projects use simple words to explain your problem don't don't use complicated words clear over clever pick one core problem statement and say that there are two three more mini problems but this is the main challenge that I will solve explain how you solved it but don't talk about possibilities just show the end in the beginning play with the zeganic effect show the climax and then explain your reader how you got there right simple text and please use just these four fonts people keep asking me what font what font what font plus Jakarta Satoshi these can be for your headings for copy just use inter Poppins is also for your headings don't use unnecessary illustrations don't put any distractions the good examples that I've shared are the first person The Coho one use illustrations very very well so you can take inspiration from that don't use clunky paragraphs and then show the older designs and actually show the before and after revolution embed a prototype make a short loom video explaining your process embed that loom video in the beginning of the medium article itself folks I'm telling you these small small things really really matter a lot now I'm telling you write at least three case studies the list I've already shared in the middle increase your depth and ability as you progress right so set a timeline your first case study which is going to be your redesigned case study for your iOS mobile don't take more than two weeks your second case study which is going to be you designing something from scratch don't take more than three weeks then for your third case study take at least a month and this is the one that's gonna help you get a job if you follow the checklist if you follow all those loopholes that I have pointed out and do a grammar check on every single thing if you want grammarly Pro just get that okay we're almost at the end there are some very very important resources that I want to share before we end this video the first one is a free ux design course that I have uploaded on my YouTube channel I've already promoted it many many times so I'm just gonna reiterate on one thing that the last five videos folks are very very important I see people watching the first five videos and they don't stay consistent and they are losing out on a lot of value that is there in the last five videos trust me you are missing out then about the inspiration about those quick resources this is the video that you need to find I will put the links in description this one has some very very valuable free resources to upskill if you have never done any kind of documentation if you don't know what notion is I have made a video which is on how to use notion it's a beginners tutorial I teach how I document all my learnings I've been doing it since 2020 trust me it has helped me a lot with that we end the part one of this case study guide does a lot more I will cover that in the second video I don't want to dump so much of information if you like this video please make sure you comment in fact I've been loving all the summaries you folks have been adding in the comment section as well let me know if there's something specific you want me to cover in the next video please make sure you click on subscribe and hit the Bell icon because we will be uploading some very very cool videos on ux design on AI and on spatial design as well that will teach you how to design apps for the Apple Vision Pro with that being said I hope that you're taking care of your mind and body this is your Dost ansh Mera signing out if you like this video make sure you click on like and hit the Subscribe button I regularly upload videos on ux design marketing and storytelling