"My Perfect Platform Would Be Telepathy" - Reimagining the Design of Social Media with Autistic Adults

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Barros Pena, B., Koteyko, N., Van Driel, M., Delgado, A., & Vines, J. (2023). "My Perfect Platform Would Be Telepathy" - Reimagining the Design of Social Media with Autistic Adults. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580673

Publication date: 19 Apr 2023 Added to AutiHub: 6 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
5
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 5 (20.0%)
  1. Belén Barros Pena
  2. Nelya Koteyko
  3. Martine Van Driel *
  4. Andrea Delgado
  5. John Vines

Abstract

In this paper, we critically examine the design of mainstream social media platforms from the point of view of autistic experiences and perspectives, drawing inspiration from the neurodiversity movement, the notion of autism as neurodivergence, and the concept of autistic sociality. We conducted 12 participatory design sessions with 20 autistic adult collaborators. Through thematic analysis of qualitative data, we identify seven challenges our participants experienced when using social media, and a set of imagined features that represent their vision of how design could better support their social media use. We discuss how mainstream social media platforms are primarily designed to address neurotypical sensitivities, and fail autistic adults through lack of user control, inadequate mechanisms for expressing tone and intention, and an orientation towards phatic interactions. To close, we outline how autistic sociality can inspire the design of kinder and more considerate social media platforms.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 2 Oct 2026 14:04.

Cited references
59
With a DOI
51
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
7
12 / 59 (20.3%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
3 / 59 (5.1%)
References with detected author names
57 / 59 (96.6%)
Without detected author names
2
Without a structured title
2
Without a stable identifier
7
References with raw author names still to review
2
References with external metadata lookup issues
1
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
189
From DOI or external metadata
189
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
2
61 / 189 (32.3%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 128 / 189 (67.7%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
12 / 189 (6.3%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 12 / 61 (19.7%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 8 / 167 (4.8%).
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