When it comes to showcasing the talents and accomplishments of Jira Platform Designers, we faced a unique challenge:
How could we create a monthly portfolio that is visually engaging, easy to update, and offered a customized experience?
So far, we have tried different Confluence formats, but… it’s kinda hard to capture people’s attention with YACN (yet another Confluence newsletter).
In seeking a solution, I turned to the principles set forth by Charlie Sutton in The road ahead for Design. The Lead Different approach was the guiding star that helped shape the solution.
These principles are:
Here’s how they were put into practice when building the newsletter.
<aside> ⚠️ After five days, we’ve had 217 views and 201 visitors, making it the most viewed JPlat Design Newsletter so far. Stats
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The newsletter was built around the idea of visual storytelling. Instead of simply listing the achievements of our designers, we used Figma to create a dynamic, interactive platform where viewers could explore the work of our designers in a visual and engaging way.
The brief was straightforward and no-nonsense. Take the iPhone 14 page as a great example of "show, don’t just tell” in action. It uses feature tiles that, when clicked, expand into a full-screen, side-scrolling experience. It’s a lot like flipping through a magazine - it’s visual, it’s interactive. Sounds like a solid jumping-off point to me.
To illustrate the concept of a tile, I put together a sample using images from Unsplash. I’ve also created two example tiles, dark and light, to help visualize the potential.