How to Evaluate a Designer or Developer's App Portfolio

Portfolios are a great means to understand a designer’s or developer’s skills. A portfolio showcases the apps or the parts of the apps that someone previously built.

At first glance, a portfolio may seem relevant only to a designer, since it’s easy to visually inspect the work. The nice thing about the App Store, however, is that you can download any portfolio app (see the imagw below) and try it yourself. That allows you to experience a developer’s work too by seeing how responsive an app is and whether it seems stable or crashes.




The other use of the portfolio is that you can discuss the apps with the designer or developer. Ask why her app looks or functions the way it does, what some of the tough decisions were, and what she considers the best and worst parts of the app (especially what she believes needs to be improved). I find the best way to do that is to focus on two or three screens. Try to really dig into the details beyond what’s obvious. Another reason this step is important—and you might be surprised by this fact—is that some people will misrepresent apps as part of their portfolio when they really are not. That won’t be possible if you have these types of discussions.

If their apps are fairly different from what you want to build, ask them how they’ll approach designing or developing your app. Guide them to be more specific and ask what they see as the big challenges with your app compared to what they previously built. A good approach is to point them to one or two apps that are similar to yours and then follow the same exercise as with their portfolio apps by focusing on two or three screens and then discussing with them.