Ellen Covey Portfolio
Senior Product Designer at Birda. Her self-initiated case study 'The Beakery' — a custom bird-feed app born from her own quail-breeding frustration — is methodically documented: personas, two rounds of usability testing, and measured task completion.
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
Real, quoted user interviews
She interviews real bird owners and quotes them directly — verbatim quotes signal genuine primary research instead of assumed personas.
Two-stage usability testing with a stated fix
Lo-fi testing surfaced a specific friction point, which she then validated was resolved in hi-fi testing — showing the before/after of a testing round.
Personas tied to divergent use cases
Two contrasting personas justify why the product needed separate flows, a concrete design decision rather than decoration.
Competitive research outside the immediate category
Auditing adjacent industries (dog food customization, protein-bar personalization) shows the instinct to borrow patterns rather than copy direct competitors.
What Product Designers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
If you lack access to a company's real users, run your own interviews on a self-initiated project — real quotes beat invented personas.
Document usability testing in two rounds and show what specifically changed between them.
Pull inspiration from products outside your immediate category and say so explicitly.
State your task-completion result plainly, even informally, rather than omitting outcomes.
More Product Designer portfolios
Ready to build your portfolio?
Follow the Product Designer roadmap — skills, projects, and timeline to get hired.