Issues

Portfolio Tools Used (personal websites, weebly, code, etc.)

Goals (academic purposes, career purposes, hobby/creative purposes)
Process (in-progress documentation vs post-project documentation, if they did choose inprogress documentation, was it better for the final phase of that project?)
How did you learn to use portfolio tools/how do you learn documentation skills?
Challenges (is the website/tool you used useful? does it communicate what your work is
showing? Was it hard to start? Who did you use for inspiration?)
How do all of these issues change over time?
Objectives
Figure out expert portfolio practices from master students
Find ways to teach expert portfolios practices to students
Understand progression from novice to expert (challenges, issues, etc.)
Method Selection
Contextual Interview
Workflow think-aloud
Storytelling
Participants
Master students, advanced undergrad students, PHD students. We will ask them questions and
have them go through a piece or two from their portfolio. The rationale behind the participants is
to gain an understanding about portfolio practices from semi-professional to expert level
experience. For each participant, one team member will take the lead. One other team member
will join and take charge of note taking.
Logistics
The study will be conducted preferably at the subjects work environment - like their office or
studio. If not, then the study will occur at a quiet, private space where the interview can be
conducted undisturbed and where the subject is able to display their portfolio. Each team
member will take the lead on scheduling an interview, with them being responsible for reaching
out via email and coordinating the time and location. Data recording will be done with our
phones - using sound recording during the interview and video recording when the subject is
showing their portfolio. Notes will also be recorded using computers or notebooks.
Data Analysis & Reporting
Affinity Diagram
Persona Hypothesis
User Profile Insights Board
Video of student explaining project in portfolio
Images of student personas

User Study Protocol

Problem Statement
What are examples of expert portfolio processes and how is a level of expertise developed?
Objective
Identify good and bad portfolio practices.
Interpret how portfolio practices are developed over time.
Recognize methods to teach or model good portfolio practices.
Methods
The method we aim to use will be a mix of a contextual interview and workflow think aloud. This
is because the interview will ideally take place at the subject's place of work, but if not possible
will take place in an alternative location. The subject will be asked to present two pieces from
their portfolio and talk about the process of documenting each piece. After presenting their
portfolio pieces we will ask the subject follow up questions include directed storytelling about
how they learned their portfolio practices, and questions about their motivations.
Questions
What motivated you to document your work and make a portfolio?
How do you tailor your portfolio for specific motivations?
How did you start the documentation process?
Were you documenting from the start or was it a post-production documentation?
What are your greatest challenges when documenting?
If you werent at CMU, do you think you would have been as successful as you
are today?
Asking interviewee who do they consider as inspiration and expert portfolio
people? (letting them comment about other expert portfolios and how well they displayed
their work)
Asking them about good and bad portfolio practices
Asking them about what they think about glasslabs platform (i.e comment
sections)
How they personalised their website to fit their creative needs to display their
work
Focusing on how to use a website for assessment vs what they gain out of it
personally
How have you learned from other people at CMU?
Collection Technique
Interviews,
Video recording,
URLs of students portfolios,
User Profile Insights Board