Agreed. While some of it may be legitimately free to use, I cannot trust it because so much of the rest they most certainly don't have a license to use.

Can you share some of the sorts of questions you've struggled with?

Giving general advice is a bit challenging. Each interviewer and company will be looking for different things, and the questions/needs will vary a lot depending on the role and level.

With that said, I'll try to provide some advice.

Generally speaking, each question I ask is intended to help me understand something about you, your abilities, and your experience. It can be helpful to think about the question from that perspective so you give an appropriate answer. I don't necessarily care about the design piece you're showing me, but I do want to know how you got to that design.

The questions I ask typically fall into two groups:

1. Assessing your general understanding of the UX process and your ability to implement this. Most likely my role will be different than things you've done in the past, so I need to know you understand the fundamentals and can apply them in a variety of scenarios.
2. Specific questions about items in your portfolio. For example, why did you choose a hamburger menu instead of a tab bar. Here, I want to see your design thinking in practice. Is it user-centric? Do you use data to drive decisions? Do you understand pros and cons of different components? And so on.

Hope this helps a little. Happy to answer more specific questions!

Half of these are completely unreadable.

I like this advice.

I was working with a client who has a coaching business and she was having trouble coming up with content. I suggested she reach out to her existing clients for testimonials, and then base the copy on her site on what her customers wrote. Not only did she get some awesome testimonials, but she was then able to use many of the same terms and phrases in her content. It also gave her a really good sense of what her customers value, which made for stronger value statements.

All of what Weston said is really good.

One additional thought: A lack of promotion isn't necessarily bad. I know plenty of designers who just want to be designers, don't want to move into management (which is a totally different job), and aren't really in a position to become a "Principle" designer (smaller companies/few such roles/etc.). However, a lack of movement, growth, working on bigger/different projects and so on for several years would be concerning. Things change, and invariably get more complicated, so it is important to show you can change and improve, irrespective of job title.

Good post. It was great to see your process and how they led to results.

One quick suggestion: At the start of your article, mention what your business is and probably also link to your Etsy storefront. When I first started reading, I didn't actually know what your business was.

Where do you go now for community like this?

I've joined a few Slack channels, but mostly they've been regional or otherwise not quite a good fit.

Great design. I particularly love the color choices.

Love seeing early versions of products.

Great reminder of how importation iteration and evolution is with product design. Getting it right is early is important, but more important is often getting something out there, seeing how it is working, improving it, then rinse and repeat.