The newsletter boom hasn’t been the transformational media watershed some envisioned, but it has encouraged some new voices to share their expertise and analysis. That’s certainly true among UX and product management newsletters, where some exciting new arrivals have joined time-tested favorites to help make the landscape even more robust.
10 UX and Product Management Newsletters to Read
- UX Design Weekly
- The UX Notebook
- Accessibility Weekly
- User Weekly
- Finding Out
- The DESK Magazine
- Dense Discovery
- Prioritised
- Bring the Donuts
- Lenny’s Newsletter
Given that fact, it seemed like a good time to take stock of the scene. Below you’ll find a sample of some notable newsletter offerings. Some send out curated link roundups, others deliver discursive essays, others split the difference and combine the two approaches. Whether you’re a product manager, UX designer or just a fan of digital design, you should find something worth a sign-up.
General UX
UX Design Weekly
Kenny Chen, a senior interaction designer at Google, has been delivering this popular, hand-picked collection of links since 2014. Each Monday, readers get a no-frills roundup of five recent UX articles, three or so tools and resources links, one portfolio spotlight, a historical quote and a “last but not least” — a potpourri-style catchall that might be a case study, a bonus blog or whatever catches Chen’s fancy that week.
Audience: UX designers looking for a quick-scan collection of notable happenings and writing.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: Issue 365
The UX Notebook
As an instructor and career coach, Sarah Doody prefigured much of the UX bootcamp boom, and as the force behind the long-running UX Notebook, she foreshadowed the newsletter craze by several years, too. The UX Notebook features thoughtful updates and musings about the industry followed by a curated sample of recent UX-related content — usually four articles and one podcast episode.
Audience: Design and product professionals, and those looking to become one.
Frequency: Every other week.
Sample: UX Notebook #334
The UX Collective Newsletter
A weekly digest of highlights from the long-running site, which features advice and trend analysis written by UX and product practitioners from around the globe. Each issue features one lead feature, a trio of editor’s picks, a small collection of articles from around the web and a spotlight of tools-and-resources posts.
Audience: UX and product professionals, both new and veteran.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: The State of UX in 2022
Accessibility Weekly
David A. Kennedy, a senior UX designer at digital services company Ad Hoc, has been highlighting accessibility articles and how-to’s in Accessibility Weekly since 2015, and the weekly roundup remains an invaluable resource. It’s a fuss-free, down-to-business digest that leads with one featured piece, followed by a dozen or so links to useful articles, resources and tutorials, plus one spotlighted resource for those new to accessible design.
Audience: Anyone concerned with accessibility best practices — which is to say, all digital designers and developers, ideally.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: Issue #269
Don’t Think About the Future
Christopher Butler, chief design officer at digital marketing firm Newfangled and a longtime blogger, favors a conversational and essayistic approach in Don’t Think About the Future. His writing is generally removed from the professional development and topic-of-the-day discourse that (understandably) predominates the UX/product newsletter landscape. Rather, Butler ruminates on whatever design topic happens to be front of mind, ranging from consumer-tech ergonomics to less-is-more canards.
Audience: Fans of voice-y tech pondering.
Frequency: Roughly once per week.
Sample: What if phones were actually designed for hands?
Nerdy Diva
Shanae Chapman is a UX educator and IBM and Boeing veteran whose Nerdy Diva newsletter tackles topics in UX research and design, diversity and inclusion, and leadership. Recent issues have included resources for website engagement, designing inclusive APIs, anti-racist design and Chapman’s five favorite self-care apps.
Audience: UX designers seeking inclusive design resources.
Frequency: Every few weeks.
Sample: Legacy & Celebration
UX Research
User Weekly
In this relative newcomer — launched in June of 2021 — Jan Ahrend, a senior user experience researcher at Google, answers the question he found himself frequently asking: What mattered in UX research this week? User Weekly packs a lot of information into each issue, including a short Q&A with a fellow researcher; a spotlight of recent articles; a collection of guides, tutorials and case studies; plus podcast and video links.
Audience: UX researchers tracking trends and developments in the field.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: User Weekly #25
UX Psychology
Another recent arrival with a UX research bent, this Substack, launched in October by UX researcher and cognitive psychologist Maria Panagiotidi, dives into UX-adjacent psychological principles (like unconscious bias), product-related psychology research (such as this overview of a Zoom fatigue study) and research-informed usability advice (tips for effective button microcopy, for example).
Audience: UX researchers and cognitive psychology buffs.
Frequency: Twice weekly.
Sample: Why do people hate redesigns?
Finding Out
Veronica Erb, a former UX researcher at NPR, sidesteps the tools-and-tutorials format, instead penning weekly introspective essays that tie personal narratives to underlying UI/UX themes, like creativity and empathy. The results can be downright poetic, whether Erb is framing a stroll through a rainy backyard as a metaphor for research or extolling the benefits of drawing like a kid.
Audience: Philosophical UX practitioners with a penchant for creative nonfiction.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: Irises and rain barrels
People Nerds
Every Thursday, UX research platform dscout sends out highlights from its always-worth-a-read blog, People Nerds. The newsletter offers a thorough — but not overwhelming — sample of interviews, advice, opinions, community polls and case studies. Also of note: dScout’s ongoing partnership with HmntyCntrd, the human-centered design community, which has resulted in thoughtful pieces on “cosmetic diversity,” people-centered advocacy tactics and more.
Audience: Anyone interested in UX perspectives, especially UX research.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: When Blackface Goes Digital: How to Go Deeper Than Cosmetic Diversity
UX and Design
The DESK Magazine
Five years in, Tobias van Schneider’s digital design newsletter remains a must-read. An incisive (yet approachable) opening letter introduces each issue, followed by stray observations, product spotlights and a sample of van Schneider’s blog. (The blog, also known as DESK, is now more of a proper design publication, with a roster of contributors, rather than a personal-musings landing pad.) The posts, like the newsletter itself, are frequently expansive and casual in tone, but never dip into rangy rambling.
Audience: Readers interested in design, productivity, consumer tech and portfolio tips.
Frequency: Every other week.
Sample: Thinking about doing
Dense Discovery
Former UI designer and current Offscreen publisher Kai Brach has been delivering this weekly tech digest since 2018. The focus extends beyond digital design, exploring sustainability and ethics, too, but any UX or web design professional will find much to savor. Each issue includes a short letter from Brach, a rundown of four interesting new apps and sites, a bite-sized recommendation Q&A with someone in tech, three notable reads, two book picks and a nugget of trivia. Then there’s the “aesthetically pleasing” section, which spotlights lovely photography, graphic design, typefaces and more.
Audience: Digital design aficionados and conscious tech consumers.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: Current issue and archive
Sidebar
Digital design enthusiasts who appreciate an eye for curation and schedule reliability will embrace this option. Designer and developer Sacha Greif has been delivering Sidebar, a daily quick-hit survey of five notable design-related links exploring everything from digital typography to accessibility to color theory, for nearly 10 years.
Audience: Discerning designers looking for inspiration, trends and tools.
Frequency: Daily.
Sample: The Sidebar homepage includes links from the previous seven days.
Product Management
Prioritised
Mind the Product’s Prioritised has been cataloging notable product-management media for more than six years, bringing together relevant highlights from UX specialist and general interest outlets, plus a bevy of house-made content. Prioritised is now paywalled, but the $250 annual cost includes more beyond the newsletter, including training modules, ask-me-anythings, roundtable discussions and a library of video content.
Audience: Product managers and budding product managers wanting to upskill, network and track trends.
Frequency: Weekly.
Sample: Subscribe to read.
Bring the Donuts
Product management coach and ex-Googler Ken Norton resurrected his popular Bring the Donuts in early 2021 after a stretch of dormancy, and although the frequency has again become inconsistent in recent months, it remains a deep well of PM knowledge. The newsletter retains the casual-but-productive vibe of grabbing coffee with a seasoned mentor — full of tech-historical context and from-the-frontlines career advice.
Audience: Product managers in search of surrogate mentorship.
Frequency: Occasional.
Sample: It’s Time to Fight for a Dual Product Management Career Path
Lenny’s Newsletter
Former Airbnb product manager Lenny Rachitsky’s aptly titled Lenny’s Newsletter has garnered accolades from the likes of Andrew Chen (partner at Andreessen Horowitz), Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt founder) and Li Jin (Variant and Atelier co-founder). Rachitsky goes long on product management (from a role perspective and career-development perspective), with ample considerations of growth strategy, product-market fit, metrics and entrepreneurship and investing. (Rachitsky is now an angel investor, with a portfolio that includes Substack and Clubhouse.)
Audience: Product people interested in growth, marketing and GTM.
Frequency: Weekly (paid) / Monthly (free).
Sample: My favorite product management templates
Product Habits
This newsletter takes a few different formats. It might be a simple call for survey participation, or an overview spotlight of a blog post, published on a site affiliated with Product Habits creator Hiten Shah. But the links roundups, curated by Shah, frequently stand out. He chooses an idiosyncratic collection of content (articles, videos, personal blogs posts, Twitter threads) that covers a wide swath of topics. Each roundup contains two links each on business, product, marketing and sales, growth (Shah famously co-coined the term “growth hacking”) and management, plus one “insight of the week” and an editor’s pick.
Audience: Product managers looking for under-the-radar reads and resources.
Frequency: Roughly once per week.
Sample: Subscribe to read.
Boagworld
Paul Boag — founder of UK design agency Headscape and author of a number of books, including a recent one on dark patterns — is the Boag in Boagworld. Readers get biweekly missives on conversion rate optimization, product management, product marketing, UX and related topics from the veteran design consultant and self-described “grumpy old man of the web.”
Audience: Product people looking to upskill and drive conversion ethically.
Frequency: Every other week.
Sample: User Research Vs. Creativity
Perspectives
As the founder of Women in Product and a former product leader at Facebook (she spearheaded features like Marketplace and Platform), Perspectives writer Deb Liu has plenty of product wisdom to share. But don’t expect a standard-issue product-strategy book in newsletter form. Liu just as often contemplates tangential and downstream issues of life in product leadership as well, from insomnia to burnout to executive ambition.
Audience: Readers looking for a holistic account of product management and the C-suite.
Frequency: Roughly once per week.
Sample: Make the First 90 Days Count
Ask Gib
In Ask Gib, Gibson Biddle fields product questions from subscribers and channels his high-level experience (former VP of product at Netflix, former chief product officer at Chegg) to offer tips on product strategy, leadership, career development and more. The frequency has slowed since his initial twice-per-week clip, but the perspective remains insightful, especially his long peeks behind the curtain, like the recent two-part history of Netflix personalization.
Audience: Product managers looking for actionable tales from the trenches.
Frequency: Every few weeks.
Sample: What’s your focus during your first 90 days as Head of Product?
