Know if your Figma portfolio was opened, one application at a time
Send one link per application, named by company and role. See which link was opened, for how long, and which projects held attention, never who.
By Thomas Cescousse, product designer and maker of DASHUND
To know if your Figma portfolio was opened, send each company its own link, named after the company and the role, then look at the sessions on each link. You'll see which application opened your work, how long people stayed, and which project caught their eye. You'll never know who opened it: no names, no emails. That's fine, because the only useful question is "what should I change in my portfolio?"
Why a Figma link tells you nothing
When you send the Figma share link to your prototype, you get no feedback at all. The recruiter may have opened it for ten seconds, twenty minutes, or never. So you redo your portfolio blind, based on conflicting advice from the internet.
Figma isn't the problem: a share link just isn't built to measure anything. To measure, you need a link that knows where the visit came from. That's what one link per application gives you.
Step 1: publish your portfolio as a prototype
Your portfolio needs to be a Figma prototype, with a flow starting point and screens connected by interactions. You don't need the whole portfolio: a single case study is enough to start.
Before publishing, check two things in Figma:
- the file is shared with "Anyone with the link", view access;
- every screen has a clear name ("Home", "Case study: Banking app", "Contact"), because that's the name you'll read in your
results.
With the DASHUND plugin, you publish straight from Figma, no code. The plugin freezes a version of your prototype, so every recruiter sees the same thing, even if you keep tweaking the file.
Step 2: one link per application
This is the heart of it. In DASHUND, every prototype has a main link, and you add one audience per application in the Segments tab. Each audience gets its own link to the same portfolio.
Name each link after the company and the role, never after a person:
- "Acme: Product Designer"
- "Blue Studio: Junior UX Designer"
- "Bank X: Product Designer, open application"
Two reasons. First, that's what you actually want to know: which application opened your work. Second, links get forwarded. The recruiter sends it to the design manager, who passes it to a designer on the team. All of those visits land on the same link. You see the application moving forward, not who looked.
Use each audience's internal note to record when and where you sent it ("sent Nov 4 through the careers page"). Only you can see it.
Keep the main link for everything that isn't an application: your LinkedIn profile, your online resume. And if you print a resume for a job fair, every link also comes with a QR code, as PNG or SVG.
Step 3: read the results, link by link
The Performance by audience table shows, for each application, the number of sessions and the median duration. Click a row and every view filters down to that application.
Here are the questions you can now ask, and where to find the answers:
| Your question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Was this link opened? | The audience's sessions |
| How long did they stay? | Median duration, and each session in detail |
| Which project held their attention? | The Flow and time spent on each screen |
| When did they leave? | Exits in the Flow, the exit screen of each session |
| Did they come back? | New or returning visitor, on each session |
| What did they click? | Heatmaps, including clicks outside clickable areas |
A session starts once the prototype has finished loading. If someone leaves before that, it's counted separately as an "abandoned load". On mobile, Figma can take several seconds to load: if you see a lot of abandoned loads, your first screen may be too heavy.
Step 4: change what needs changing
Numbers from a single application don't say much. Trends across several applications are what help you.
- Everyone leaves on the same screen? Often it's a case study that runs too long before the outcome. Move the outcome up.
- One project is almost always opened first? Maybe it deserves the top spot, or maybe it's just placed first. The Flow
tells you whether it's a choice or a position effect.
- Clicks on images that don't respond? Recruiters want to zoom in or see more. Add an interaction or a detail screen.
- Very short durations everywhere? Your first screen isn't making people want to keep going. Show a concrete result right
on the home screen.
To find out whether your new version does better, publish it as a new prototype and compare both in Compare. The Free plan lets you keep two prototypes live at the same time: the old one and the new one.
What DASHUND won't tell you
Let's be clear: DASHUND doesn't know the name, email, or IP address of anyone who opens your links. Sessions are tied to a random ID that belongs to your prototype only. So you can't email a recruiter saying "I see you looked at my project". That's not what it's for.
And don't use your own visits as a benchmark: if you open one of your application links yourself, your session counts like a recruiter's. Test in the DASHUND preview instead, which records nothing. If a test session slipped in anyway, you can delete it in the Sessions tab.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. The Free plan isn't a trial: it doesn't end. It includes 1 workspace, 2 live prototypes, 100 sessions a month and 30 days of history. A job search fits in it. The only trade-off is a small "Powered by DASHUND" mention below the prototype, without covering it. Details are on the pricing page.
With 30 days of history, get into the habit of checking your links every week and writing down what you learn: older sessions are deleted.
For everything else (Flow, heatmaps, step-by-step sessions), the features page shows every view, and the guide How to test a Figma prototype walks through publishing.
FAQ
Will I know who opened my portfolio?
No. You'll know which application, meaning which link, was opened, because you created one link per application. DASHUND doesn't know the person's name, email, or IP address.
Does the recruiter need an account or to install anything?
No. They open a link and see your portfolio in their browser, on a computer or a phone. No account to create, no task to follow.
My portfolio is a website, not a Figma file. Does this work?
DASHUND measures Figma prototypes. You can start with a single case study as a Figma prototype and link to it from your site with a DASHUND link.
How many applications can I track on the Free plan?
The Free plan counts sessions, not links: 100 sessions a month, across 2 live prototypes. Create as many audiences as you send applications.
Does a link forwarded to a colleague skew the numbers?
No: their visits land on the same link, so on the same application. You see several sessions on that link, which is often a sign your portfolio is making the rounds inside the team.