The UX Collective is now the largest design publication on Medium, reaching an audience of over four hundred thousand people from all over the world. With that, comes great responsibility with the community we build — and believe in. In 2021 we are raising the bar even higher and reinforcing our commitment to publishing high-quality content that gives voice and space to designers and topics we find uttermost important for our industry. This is not a once-and-done effort; we will be continuously reshaping our content to adhere to the guidelines below.

Here are the principles and goals we are setting for ourselves in 2021:

We focus on content that pushes our industry forward

The majority of our readers at the UX Collective have been in the industry for some time and are well aware of the benefits of user-centered design. They don’t need to be convinced about “the importance of personas”, and might not need tips on “how to build a design portfolio” anymore. That’s why we are focusing our editorial approach on two distinct audiences:

• At the UX Collective, we prioritize topics we believe are important to be at the center of the design discourse today, whether it is due to timely relevancy or to the long-term impact on our profession. We are looking for stories that aim to provoke change in the industry, break myths, push our discipline forward, introduce new concepts, and offer readers a different way of looking at things.
• How-tos, case studies, job hunting advice, portfolio tips, or short opinion pieces are published on Bootcamp: our sister publication focused on designers who are starting now. We know the importance of that type of content for designers starting their careers or honing their skills in a particular interest, so we want to make sure that content gets distributed to the right audience. The best stories published on Bootcamp are shared and promoted via our newsletter and social media channels.
• The feedback from authors and readers about both publications has been incredibly positive and today we have designers sharing their content consistently for the UX Collective, Bootcamp, and many authors writing for both publications at the same time.

We are obsessed with giving credit

When you are writing a story, there’s a 99% chance someone has written about that topic before. If you don’t reference previous articles that touch on the topics you’re covering, there’s a risk that a newcomer will think that you were the person who came up with all the concepts, methods, and ideas that are included in your story.

This comes with two incredibly terrifying thoughts that can ruin a designer’s career: (1) Taking credit for someone else’s ideas; (2) Thinking you have a really original idea, to only later find out it was not that original.

When we publish something, we want to be mindful of not “erasing” decades of knowledge from really smart authors who have been writing about these topics for a while.

Practical tips for writers submitting stories:

• Google the topic you’re writing about before you start. Chances are that other people have written about this topic before. When you don’t take time to add links and references to other people, you are essentially erasing their work — and you risk positioning yourself as someone who doesn’t usually research things or who doesn’t value other people’s intellectual property.
• Add notes, credits, and links, including inspiration and references. If you did your homework and researched the topic properly, you will have at least a few links to add throughout your article, plus a few more as footnotes.
• Add references that contradict your argument. Show the other side of the story, make your article less binary — there’s enough polarization in the world, so the more respectful you can be when presenting counter-arguments, the more you will bring other people along.
• Give credit to image creators. Even if the image/illustration is free or CreativeCommons. We are a creative community and we value intellectual property above all else.

We prioritize quality over quantity

We are always being mindful of not overwhelming our readers with too many stories a day — so we are publishing fewer, more thoughtful articles at a time, and prioritizing quality over quantity. This means in some cases we have to either postpone or decline some really great stories.

• When you submit a draft (as opposed to a published story), it’s easier for us to make your story fit within our editorial calendar. We can also coordinate the launch of your story with how we promote it across our social channels, to make sure we get that story out to as many relevant readers as possible.
• When you submit a story that’s already been published and we’ve reached our limit of stories for that day, there is a chance we’ll have to push it to a later date and your story will end up losing momentum. Whenever possible, always prioritize submitting drafts.

If you’re interested in publishing your ideas with us, you should check out our guidelines — which provide a baseline for both publications. We are not looking for an absence of disqualifications; we are looking for the presence of quality and editorial fit for each one.

Writing is a privilege. When we write, we get a lot from it — knowledge, visibility, voice. Our readers should get twice as much. Let’s challenge ourselves to do more for our design community whenever we can. We are looking forward to your next idea.