Everyone knows that when staring at a blank screen faced with writing a new article, the ideas don’t always come, but something that made me laugh was @sambfarkas summing up what she misses most about the ‘Old Book Twitter’— make-up recommendations! And this got me thinking. It wasn’t really about makeup, it was about community, and that has everything to do with UX design.
Why community matters in UX
Every digital product is designed for use, but the best ones are designed for us. Humans are social creatures. We seek connection, validation, and shared meaning. Communities make platforms sticky not because of their features but because of the people inside them.
This is why Book Twitter mattered. It wasn’t a forum or a marketplace, tt was a loose community where readers swapped notes about lipstick as easily as about novels. The recommendations were valuable precisely because they came from peers, not advertisers.
In UX terms, community is the invisible layer that makes tools more than tools. It transforms a platform into a place.
The currencies of community: attention and trust
Digital communities run on two currencies: attention and trust.
Attention is what platforms design for :likes, scrolls, notifications. It’s measurable and monetisable.
Trust is what keeps communities alive. It’s slower, harder to measure, but infinitely more powerful.
Book Twitter worked because it generated both. People gave attention to each other’s posts, but trust built when those posts felt genuine. A mascara recommendation that survived tears at a wedding mattered more than any glossy ad campaign. It was trust wrapped in story.
Why stories are the glue
Humans are narrative animals. We don’t just want data, we want context.
That’s why the Book Twitter mascara story sticks. “This mascara lasts through crying” isn’t just a review. It’s a narrative you can imagine yourself in. Communities thrive on these micro-stories, which layer together into a collective identity.
Good UX harnesses this. Goodreads doesn’t just let you rate a book; it lets you write a review. Etsy doesn’t just list products; it lets sellers tell their origin stories. Substack doesn’t just send newsletters; it frames them as ongoing conversations.
Stories turn platforms into ecosystems.
The cozy side of community
When community design works well, it feels like a living room. You show up, people notice you, and you feel part of something.
Discord servers thrive on this, each has its own tone, memes, in-jokes. TikTok’s “sides” (BookTok, Cottagecore, CleanTok) work similarly, generating subcultures that feel like micro-communities inside the larger app.
In UX, this sense of belonging makes platforms sticky. Users return not just for features but for the people and the culture. That’s why, years later, people look back with nostalgia. It wasn’t the algorithm, it was the shared narrative of discovery.
When community fractures
But communities have a dark side. The same design that builds trust can just as easily erode it.
Exclusion: Communities can become cliques. Insider jokes that once felt welcoming can harden into barriers.
Harassment: Without moderation, communities become unsafe. Toxic voices drive out those who need safety most.
Echo chambers: Too much similarity creates feedback loops. Communities stagnate when they never encounter new ideas.
We’ve seen this play out on Reddit (fractures over moderation), Facebook (polarisation via groups), and even early Substack Notes (where some communities thrived but others spiralled into conflict).
Design isn’t neutral here. The rules of engagement:what’s surfaced, what’s hidden, what’s rewarded, shape whether a community thrives or collapses.
Lessons from platforms
Reddit: crowdsourcing trust
Reddit’s upvote/downvote system is simple but effective. It lets communities elevate voices collectively, creating a sense of fairness. But it also risks mob rule, where unpopular voices vanish even if they add value.
TikTok: algorithmic community
TikTok doesn’t ask you to find a community; it finds one for you. Its algorithm clusters people into niches, BookTok, WitchTok, D&D TikTok, without explicit group boundaries. It’s efficient but fragile: community identity is at the mercy of the algorithm.
Discord: intimacy at scale
Discord servers thrive because they’re semi-private. Small groups feel intimate, and users shape norms together. But scaling them is hard; intimacy often breaks down as communities grow.
Goodreads: community + utility
Goodreads survives because it balances utility (book cataloguing) with community (reviews, groups). But its dated interface shows how neglected UX can weaken community even when demand exists.
Substack Notes: rebuilding trust
Substack’s Notes feature deliberately tried to capture the Book Twitter energy. It leans on writer-led micro-communities, emphasising peer voices over algorithmic feeds. Whether it can sustain that sense of intimacy at scale remains to be seen.
The psychology of belonging
Why do we care so much about digital communities? Because they meet fundamental human needs.
Belonging: Humans are wired for social connection. Psychologists place it just above safety in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Validation: Communities offer mirrors, we see ourselves reflected in others’ stories.
Narrative identity: Philosopher Paul Ricoeur argued that we understand ourselves through stories. Communities give us shared ones.
Scale: Anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested humans can maintain about 150 stable social relationships. Digital platforms stretch that, but intimacy drops off fast beyond those numbers.
In other words: we’re designed to seek small communities. UX that respects this tends to feel safer and more human.
Designing for trust
So how do we design communities that people will one day feel nostalgic for?
Surface peer voices
Give weight to recommendations from real people, not brands. Design features that make peer contributions visible and easy to trust.Make storytelling effortless
Don’t just allow ratings, make it simple to add context. “This mascara lasted through a wedding” beats “5 stars.”Moderation = care
Communities only thrive if they’re safe. UX must make reporting, muting, and blocking as intuitive as posting.Design for scale carefully
What works for 50 people won’t work for 5 million. Build in ways for sub-communities to form naturally as platforms grow.Leave room for serendipity
Algorithms that over-personalise kill discovery. Communities need space to bump into the unexpected.
The bittersweetness of community
Like nostalgia, community is bittersweet. What makes it so sticky is also what makes it fragile. We long for connection, but we bristle at control. We crave belonging, but fear exclusion.
That’s why people talk about Book Twitter in the past tense. They’re not missing a feed, in fact it is still there, just renamed to X. They’re missing the conditions for trust, serendipity, and story. They’re missing each other as they have dispersed to find other communities on other platforms.
The UX challenge is to design not just for features but for feelings, the sense that “this is a place where my voice matters, and where I want to listen too.”
What we should be designing for
Platforms come and go. But the communities people miss are the ones where they felt part of a story bigger than themselves. The “Book Twitter effect” wasn’t lipstick. It wasn’t even Twitter. It was community, built through trust and narrative. That’s the effect we should aim for in UX design. Because the real measure of success isn’t whether people use a platform. It’s whether, years later, they say, I miss that place.
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I am a user experience consultant, branding, graphic and web designer, and long-time observer of the tech industry. By day my work blends design strategy with future-focused thinking, helping clients create better products, and by night I am a novelist. Contact me for more information.