Smashing Magazine

Ambient Animations In Web Design: Practical Applications (Part 2)

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Andy Clarke) |
Motion can be tricky: too much distracts, too little feels flat. Ambient animations sit in the middle. They’re subtle, slow-moving details that add atmosphere without stealing the show. In part two of his series, web design pioneer Andy Clarke shows how ambient animations can add personality to any ... read more

AI In UX: Achieve More With Less

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Paul Boag) |
A simple but powerful mental model for working with AI: treat it like an enthusiastic intern with no real-world experience. Paul Boag shares lessons learned from real client projects across user research, design, development, and content creation.... read more

How To Make Your UX Research Hard To Ignore

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Vitaly Friedman) |
Research isn’t everything. Facts alone don’t win arguments, but powerful stories do. Here’s how to turn your research into narratives that inspire trust and influence decisions.... read more

The Grayscale Problem

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Frederick O’Brien) |
From A/B tests to AI slop, the modern web is bleeding out its colour. Standardized, templated, and overoptimized, it’s starting to feel like a digital Levittown. But it doesn’t have to be.... read more

Smashing Animations Part 5: Building Adaptive SVGs With `<symbol>`, `<use>`, And CSS Media Queries

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Andy Clarke) |
SVGs, they scale, yes, but how else can you make them adapt even better to several screen sizes? Web design pioneer Andy Clarke explains how he builds what he calls “adaptive SVGs” using ``, ``, and CSS Media Queries. ... read more

Intent Prototyping: A Practical Guide To Building With Clarity (Part 2)

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Yegor Gilyov) |
Ready to move beyond static mockups? Here is a practical, step-by-step guide to Intent Prototyping — a disciplined method that uses AI to turn your design intent (UI sketches, conceptual models, and user flows) directly into a live prototype, making it your primary canvas for ideation.... read more

Shades Of October (2025 Wallpapers Edition)

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Cosima Mielke) |
How about some new wallpapers to get your desktop ready for fall and the upcoming Halloween season? We’ve got you covered! Following our monthly tradition, the wallpapers in this post were created with love by the community for the community and can be downloaded for free. Enjoy!... read more

From Prompt To Partner: Designing Your Custom AI Assistant

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Lyndon Cerejo) |
What if your best AI prompts didn’t disappear into your unorganized chat history, but came back tomorrow as a reliable assistant? In this article, you’ll learn how to turn one-off “aha” prompts into reusable assistants that are tailored to your audience, grounded in your knowledge, and consistent ev... read more

Intent Prototyping: The Allure And Danger Of Pure Vibe Coding In Enterprise UX (Part 1)

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Yegor Gilyov) |
Yegor Gilyov examines the problem of over-reliance on static high-fidelity mockups, which often leave the conceptual model and user flows dangerously underdeveloped. He then explores whether AI-powered prototyping is the answer, questioning whether the path forward is the popular “vibe coding” appro... read more

Ambient Animations In Web Design: Principles And Implementation (Part 1)

hello@smashingmagazine.com (Andy Clarke) |
Creating motion can be tricky. Too much and it’s distracting. Too little and a design feels flat. Ambient animations are the middle ground — subtle, slow-moving details that add atmosphere without stealing the show. In this article, web design pioneer Andy Clarke introduces the concept of ambient an... read more