Successful UX, according to Peter Morville’s famous honeycomb of factors, centers concepts like usefulness, desirability and credibility — three characteristics not always readily associated with today’s embattled social media landscape. Nevertheless, Twitter, in particular, remains a valuable network for tracking UX and digital design resources, conversations and advocacy.
That is, if you know where to look.
Below you’ll find some accounts that we think anyone in the field (or even lay, but curious, users) will find worthwhile. We chose to focus on voices we haven’t already spotlighted through newsletter and podcast roundups. And we also tried to narrow our attention to consistently active accounts.
Our list represents just a snapshot of the broader UX Twittersphere, of course, but hopefully it provides a bit of navigation assistance.
Notable UX and Digital Design Accounts
- Lisa Angela (@leeloowrites)
- Harry Brignull (@harrybr)
- Vivianne Castillo (@vastillo630)
- Doug Collins (@DougCollinsUX)
- John Cutler (@johncutlefish)
- Alex Haagaard (@alexhaagaard)
- Liz Jackson (@elizejackson)
- Dan Mall (@danmall)
- KA McKercher (@kellyanagram)
- Tanya Snook (@spydergrrl)
More Resources for Designers
UX and Design Accounts to Follow
Lisa Angela (@leeloowrites)
As in her writing, Lisa Angela frequently uses her Twitter platform to interrogate the business-as-usual complacency and inherited wisdom that sometimes goes unchallenged in real-world UX practice. Whether pushing against lionization of the old guard or venting at corporate strictures that undermine design, her account is always passionate and engaged and frequently leavened with humor.
Harry Brignull (@harrybr)
Since coining the term “dark patterns” more than a decade ago, designer Harry Brignull has remained vigilant in the fight against the deceptive and manipulative user-interface tactics he gave name to. His account doubles as resource catalog (you’ll find noteworthy research, regulatory updates and retweets of media coverage) and watchdog (Brignull doesn’t hesitate to signal-boost offending examples shared with the #darkpatterns hashtag).
Andy Budd (@andybudd)
This UX veteran possesses decades of broadly applicable design-practice wisdom, but Andy Budd’s account is doubly recommended for managers, budding managers and senior-level designers. Budd co-founded, shepherded and ultimately exited notable U.K.-based agency Clearleft — a history that left him with much to share on UX leadership, long-term product vision and strategy, design entrepreneurship and aligning with business demands.
Vivianne Castillo (@vastillo630)
Vivianne Castillo is the founder of HmntyCntrd, a network for UX professionals striving to achieve truly human-centered design. So it follows that her Twitter account also serves as a fount of wisdom on self-care, equitable design and ethics advocacy.
Doug Collins (@DougCollinsUX)
Most people in UX will likely appreciate Doug Collins’ Twitter presence, but students and early- and mid-career folks should definitely give his account a look. Collins shares a lot of well-executed fundamental-knowledge resources (recent tweets included links to must-know tools and portfolio development), but perhaps just as important, he maintains a tone of sunny resilience that can help maintain motivation. Bonus: His eye for facepalm-worthy design fails is unmatched.
Anna Cook (@annaecook)
Anna Cook is a senior accessibility designer at Northwestern Mutual and a prominent voice on #a11y Twitter. Follow her account for links to resources on accessible web, hardware, gaming and other digital design, plus contributions to important related conversations, like this one about WCAG 3 color contrast algorithm, to cite a recent example.
Sasha Costanza-Chock (@schock)
The Design Justice author centers UX and digital design in the context of the larger tech and societal issues that dominate our lives, like algorithmic fairness, data privacy, labor and racial justice. Whether channeling their own work or amplifying journalists, researchers and activists fighting the same fight, Sasha Costanza-Chock’s feed is a valued nexus for forward-thinking design perspectives.
John Cutler (@johncutlefish)
John Cutler, product evangelist and coach at Amplitude, produces high-quality product-development content at a fast pace. On Twitter, you’ll find links to his weekly blog posts plus a steady assortment of tips on team synchronicity, strategy cycles, work-in-progress management and pretty much everything else under the product sun. Not to mention a good GIF game.
Sarah Fathallah (@SFath)
On Twitter, social designer and researcher Sarah Fathallah kickstarts and contributes to important conversations around meaningful participatory design, community-led design frameworks and the intersection of research and trauma. A must-follow account for anyone contemplating the hard work behind designing for social change.
Alex Haagaard (@alexhaagaard)
Alex Haagaard is co-founder of the Disabled List, a collective that promotes disabled designers. (Fellow co-founder Liz Jackson is also featured; see below.) They’re an unwavering advocate for people with chronic invisible illness and chronic pain, stirring up good trouble against the medical and design establishments that (sadly) frequently fail them.
Erika Hall (@mulegirl)
Erika Hall, co-founder of the long-running Mule Design Studio, has written extensively about the pitfalls of surveys, plus how to get the most out of UX research, even if one’s organization doesn’t make it a priority — and she tweets along similar lines. Her’s is admittedly much more discursive than all-UX-all-the-time accounts, but her clear-eyed skepticism of tech orthodoxy and hype (from brainstorming to NFTs) is always worth taking in.
Liz Jackson (@elizejackson)
Along with helping spearhead the Disabled List, Jackson is perhaps best known for coining the concept of the “disability dongle,” which she’s described as a “well-intended elegant, yet useless solution to a problem we never knew we had.” Such projects tend to materialize when (as Jackson and other advocates have put it) a community is designed at, rather than with. Aside from cataloging and analyzing the dongle problem, Jackson’s feed stands as an engaging platform for inclusive, equitable design ideas in general.
Dan Mall (@danmall)
Design systems Twitter can be an odd and oddly contentious place, with the movement still fending intermittent backlash despite years of accepted practice. Dan Mall, a Philadelphia-based designer and educator, keeps above the fray with a steady stream of advice and resources around design systems, plus frequent tips on design tokens and talent pricing.
KA McKercher (@kellyanagram)
Genuine co-design, or designing with one’s community of users as equal partners, requires care and rigor. KA McKercher’s book, Beyond Sticky Notes, is one of the best we’ve read on the topic, thanks to its abundance of actionable principles and systems. Their social account feels like an extension of the book’s curiosity and commitment, with frequent shares of podcast episodes, reads and talks that anyone interested in the co-design movement will appreciate.
Pavel Samsonov (@PavelASamsonov)
A senior UX architect at AWS by trade and extremely online by habit, Pavel Samsonov is the definition of a power user, usually posting and sharing multiple times per day. But his steady output — a balance of well-considered product and UX advice and good-humored throwaways — plays like an informative delight, rather than information overload, and feels motivated by a desire to engage, rather than build and maintain an influencer brand.
Tanya Snook (@spydergrrl)
Tanya Snook works as an experience designer for the Canadian government and is also the founder of CanUX. But she’s probably best known for popularizing (and combatting) “UX theatre” — essentially when companies ignore or altogether forsake UX research in favor of their own preconceived ideas about how a product should take shape. Snook’s feed regularly casts a clear light on the issue and tactics for pushing back, while also exploring related topics like accessibility and human-centered design.
Jared Spool (@jmspool)
Several of the most recognizable names in the UX establishment maintain some degree of social presence, but few are as active as the famed creator of the $300 million button. Jared Spool’s takes are known to generate appreciable pushback on occasion, but, as a generous daily sharer of useful resources (new and classic) and open job postings, he can never be accused of disengagement or coasting on cred.
David Dylan Thomas (@movie_pundit)
Don’t let the handle fool you. Yes, David Dylan Thomas is quick to share his pop-culture enthusiasms, but the author of Design for Cognitive Bias also posts frequent updates about navigating the often-irrational behaviors and motivations of users (and stakeholders) and advocating for inclusive content and design.
Candi Williams (@candiwrites)
Content design can feel like an underappreciated patch of the UX constellation, but Candi Williams, a content designer at Bumble, serves as a passionate champion for the wide-ranging field — which encompasses everything from navigation content and SEO findability to content strategy and UX microcopy. Followers can expect a consistent flow of handy links to talks, conferences and resources — for working practitioners or those hoping to crack the field.
Julie Zhuo (@joulee)
The former design VP at Facebook and author of The Making of a Manager, has been sharing product and UX insights from the field for years, notably in her Looking Glass blog and newsletter. Her prompts and questions on Twitter, meanwhile, routinely generate a lot of feedback, the best of which she ably surfaces and distills. And since she’s gravitated toward crypto projects, Zhuo’s feed has also become a good place to take in conversations around UX and design in web3, blockchain and decentralized apps.
