Joseph Louis Tan

All issues

Your design process is a mess (and it's costing you)

Hey,


One of my clients came to me frustrated last month.


She'd been at her company for 3 years. Did great work. Multiple successful projects. Ready to update her portfolio and look for her next role.


Then she sat down to write her case studies.


And realized: She couldn't remember half the details.


"What was the actual user feedback that led to this decision?"

"What were the before/after metrics?"

"Where did I save those competitive analysis notes?"

"What quotes did users say in those interviews?"


She'd been so focused on shipping that she never documented properly.


Now her notes were scattered:


She spent 2 weeks trying to piece together case studies from memory and scraps of old notes.


The final result? Weak. Generic. "Improved user experience by redesigning the flow."


Not because the original work was bad. Because she couldn't remember—or prove—the impact.




Here's what I see constantly:


Designers ship great work. Then 6 months later when it's time to update the portfolio, they can't recreate the story.


They don't remember:


So their case studies end up vague:


Hiring managers read this and think: "This person can execute. But can they think strategically?"




I learned this the hard way.


Early in my career, I worked on a project at DBS Bank that saved millions in productivity.


But when I went to document it for my portfolio 8 months later? I couldn't find:


I had to recreate everything from memory. The case study was okay. But it could have been 10x stronger if I'd documented as I went.


Now? I organize as I work. Not just for current stakeholders. For future me who needs to build case studies.




This is why Elizabeth Alli is in the bundle.


image


Elizabeth is a Product Designer and founder of DesignerUp. She's taught thousands of designers through her courses and YouTube channel.


Her contribution: Notion Workspace for Product Designers.


21+ templates you copy to your Notion with one click. Not generic templates. Actual systems for organizing:


UX Research & Design:


Information Architecture:


Visual & UI Design:


Business & Strategy:


1,000+ downloads. Fully customizable.


Standalone price: $40.

In the bundle: Part of the $299 package.




Who this is for:


Designers who ship great work but struggle to build strong case studies 6 months later.


Designers with research scattered across Google Docs, Slack, screenshots, and memory.


Designers who want to document as they work—not scramble later.




Why this matters for landing $150K-$300K roles:


Your case studies are how you prove your thinking.


If you can't show:


You look like a pixel pusher. Not a strategic designer.


Elizabeth's workspace helps you capture this as you work. So when it's portfolio time, you're not scrambling. You're copy-pasting from organized notes.




Real feedback from designers:


"Thank you for organizing my endless streams of printouts and notebooks."

"Love Notion now! Bye millions of different Google Docs."

"These templates solve our problem in such an elegant way. Gathering and organizing data can be messy—this framework helps."




The bundle includes this + 5 other resources.


$299 total. Jan 5-16 only.


Unlock all resources for $299 →


Joseph


P.S. The best time to organize was when you started the project. The second best time is now—before you work on your next case study and realize you can't remember anything.

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