How long should a UX case study be?

Aim for 600–900 words per case study, readable in three to four minutes. Recruiters and hiring managers skim portfolios in under two minutes, so the first screen has to carry the problem, your role and the outcome on its own.

Write for a skim, then a read

Portfolio reviews are triage. The first pass decides whether there is a second, and it happens in well under two minutes across several candidates.

Structure for that: a headline that states the outcome, a two-sentence summary, then the detail for whoever keeps going. Front-loading is not dumbing down: it is the difference between being read and being closed.

Practical lengths

Full case study: 600–900 words, three to six sections, two or three key decisions explained properly.

Portfolio summary: about 150 words, enough to make someone open the full version.

Number of case studies: three strong ones beat six thin ones. Depth is the signal; volume is not.

What earns the extra words

Decisions and trade-offs earn length. Process documentation rarely does: nobody was ever hired for a complete list of the workshops they ran.

For each decision worth naming, say what you chose, what you rejected, and what evidence pointed that way. Three of those beat a full chronology.

Wonfolio writes it from the work you already did.

A publishable case study, a portfolio short version and three LinkedIn posts, in about ten minutes. It never invents a metric or a quote.

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Last updated 2026-08-07.