June 17, 2025 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #512
This newsletter issue was sent out to 189,671 subscribers on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
Editorial
Design lives from keen attention to detail. It’s those little things that are barely noticeable when you glance at them but make all the difference in the world once you notice them. Helpful error messages. Lovely and quirky interactions. Actionable onboarding. Good confirm and undo UX.
In this newsletter, we look at some of the things that are actually helpful — to drive user value, but also bring value to the business, and also just help designers navigate the world around us with a bit more confidence.
As we plan the rest of 2025 ahead of us, we’re excited to present to you a new series of workshops — with new workshops in Antwerp and Madrid. With practical insights into Figma, design systems, UX and design patterns for complex UIs.
- Live workshops in Antwerp and Madrid 🇧🇪 🇪🇸 (Sep–Nov)
- Online: Accessible Typography For The Web with Oliver Schöndorfer (Sep 11–19)
- Online: DataViz Accessibility Workshop with Sarah L. Fossheim (Sep 22 – Oct 6)
- Online: How To Measure UX and Design Impact with Vitaly Friedman (Dec 1 – 12)
On another note, meet Smashing Meets AI, with 3 speakers who’ll elaborate on how to use AI effectively as a designer and/or developer, and where AI is heading these days.
And this week we wish you a calm, kind, and mindful week, perhaps with fewer meetings and a bit more time to do what you truly love working on most.
— Vitaly
1. Bite-Sized UX Examples
How could we reduce churn? How can we better ask for notification permissions? And how could we remind users that a feature has been moved? Whether you and your team are solving specific problems or collecting future ideas for your product, the Built for Mars UX Bites are a wonderful resource to discover inspiring UX gems.
UX Bites features real-world examples of delightful little UX details. You can filter them by flows (e.g., Onboarding, Booking & Reserving), impacts (e.g., Churn, Attention & Interest), psychology (e.g., Confirmation Bias, User Delight), industry, and UI elements. Each bite includes info on why it works, key insights, and implementation tips. A treasure chest of bite-sized UX examples. (cm)
2. Things Every Design Student Should Know
The world of design is constantly evolving. New tools come and go, trends see the light of day and give way to the next big thing. But what are the things that stick? What piece of advice is so essential and timeless that it is worth passing it on from one generation of designers to the next?
Back in 2017, Cameron Moll shared ten things he wished every design student knew, and this year, he built on the original list and shared ten more things. Although aimed at design students, most of the principles that Cameron points out apply to all designers, regardless of experience or level. Little nuggets of design wisdom that stand the test of time. (cm)
3. Lovely 3D Icons
A traditional Japanese chest of drawers, an axolotl, a cashew, a ceramic bird, a door stopper, a hyperloop pod, and a magic lantern. Not quite the things that instantly come to one’s mind when you think of graphic icons, right? That’s exactly what makes the special charm of Thiings, a lovely collection of more than 1,900 AI-generated 3D icons that you can use for free.
Charlie Clark started Thiings as a fun, flexible way to generate and share high-quality 3D icons. And well, the icon set has grown into a giant collection of anything you could possibly think of — from everyday objects to nature- and technology-themed icons. You can browse the complete collection in an infinite grid, filter it by theme, and even generate and submit your own icons. A great choice whenever you want to add a cute, friendly twist to a design. (cm)
4. Visual History Of The Latin Alphabet
Are you up for a little journey through the history of typography? Well, we might have something for you: The ARETE project offers a new perspective on the history of the Latin alphabet. Contrary to what is usually suggested, it explains it as a network rather than a linear evolution.
Created by experts at the UCLAB at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, ARETE visualizes the historical developments and formal relationships of the different scripts and typefaces of the Latin alphabet over the centuries — from Archaic Latin to modern handwriting scripts of today. Interesting insights, not only for typography nerds. (cm)
5. Upcoming Workshops and Conferences
That’s right! We run online workshops on frontend and design, be it accessibility, performance, or design patterns. In fact, we have a couple of workshops coming up soon, and we thought that, you know, you might want to join in as well.
With online workshops, we aim to give you the same experience and access to experts as in an in-person workshop from wherever you are.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Figma Workflow Masterclass Design
with Christine Vallaure. July 23–29 - Building Interactive, Accessible Components with Modern CSS & JS Dev
with Stephanie Eckles. Aug 18–27 - UX Strategy Masterclass UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Aug 20–29 - Behavioral Design Workshop UX
with Susan Weinschenk, Guthrie Weinschenk. Sep 18 – Oct 3. - Jump to all workshops →
6. UX Research Method Guides
Are you just getting started with UX research? Or would you like to improve your research practice? Then the 101 Guides that the user research platform Optimal published are for you.
From card sorting and tree testing to building an effective information architecture, testing prototypes, and running usability tests, the guides help you gain a holistic view of your users’ experience so you can make data-driven decisions to optimize their journey. A handy little helper! (cm)
7. Driving Conversion
Often, a small tweak in an interface can lead to a significant conversion boost. It could be as simple as removing mandatory account creation to streamline the checkout process, replacing pop-ups and banners with a checklist to guide users through their first session in an app, or choosing a different icon to increase user engagement. But how to figure out which solutions work better than others?
To provide real-world insights into how small design changes in a UI affect conversion, abtest.design collects A/B test results from leading apps. It’s not only a collection of before-and-after screenshots but also delivers valuable insights into how we can improve onboarding, checkout, user engagement, and other critical parts of the user experience.
When it comes to driving conversion, we have another powerful tool at hand: social proof. Social proof builds trust and credibility by showing that others have found value in a product or service. For practical examples of social proof strategies that go way beyond the good ol’ reviews and testimonials, be sure to check out 191 Social Proof Examples. Inspiration for your own product is guaranteed. (cm)
8. Recently Published Books 📚
Promoting best practices and providing you with practical tips to master your daily coding and design challenges has always been at the core of everything we do at Smashing.
In the past few years, we were very lucky to have worked together with some talented, caring people from the web community to publish their wealth of experience as printed books. Have you checked them out already?
- Success at Scale by Addy Osmani
- Understanding Privacy by Heather Burns
- Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces by Steven Hoober
- Check out all books →
That’s All, Folks!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support in helping us keep the web dev and design community strong with our newsletter. See you next time!
This newsletter issue was written and edited by Geoff Graham (gg), Cosima Mielke (cm), Vitaly Friedman (vf), and Iris Lješnjanin (il).
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