CategoryCase Studies

March 3, 2025 — Modern frameworks are supposed to help speed up development while providing modern tools and a developer-friendly workflow. In reality, Kevin Leary has found that they cause far more problems than they solve. This ultimately leads to the big question: why are modern theme frameworks so popular, and do they really benefit developers in the long run? Read more…

February 19, 2025 — Eduard Kuric discusses the significance and role of context in the creation of relevant follow-up questions for unmoderated usability testing, how an AI tasked with interactive follow-up should be validated for its capability to incorporate such context, and what the potential — along with the risks — of AI interaction in usability testing. Read more…

December 13, 2023 — Have you run into a situation where you need the padding of one element to align with the padding of another element? In this article, Brecht De Ruyte demonstrates the issue with a full-width slider component that breaks out of the main page container and shares a couple of techniques to keep it visually aligned with other elements on the page. Read more…

December 6, 2023 — Five-second testing is a popular method of usability research used in the industry, yet in essence, its core belief boils down to virtually a superstition. Eduard Kuric looks under the hood at how first impressions are affected by various factors and how UX researchers and product owners can ensure that the user’s first steps can get off on the right foot. Read more…

October 2, 2023 — In this second article of a two-part series, Adrian shares insights about building WaterBear — his first project as a lead developer — discussing the challenges his team encountered while building it and various accessibility and performance improvements they’ve made. You’ll get a peek at the inner workings of a team striving to find its groove to systematize the work. Read more…

September 25, 2023 — Adrian’s kicking off a two-part series, sharing his journey as a lead developer. In the process, you will learn about the lessons and insights Adrian gained at work, including the strategies that went into the technical stack of the project and what it looks like to collaborate with a team he is leading for the first time. Read more…

September 18, 2023 — This article is a peek behind the curtain of how content is managed here at Smashing Magazine. In it, you’ll get a tour of an article’s full lifecycle, from a basic outline to the sort of thing you’re reading right this second. Read more…

August 3, 2023 — Liran Cohen and the team at Bookaway, a travel booking service, dramatically improved their site’s performance by auditing Core Web Vitals. In this article, Liran shares his team’s process for auditing and monitoring Web Vitals and the effort it took to dramatically improve Bookaway’s performance — and the benefits that came with it. Read more…

June 2, 2023 — Pricing a product or service is one of the more challenging aspects of product development. Pricing is an inexact science, and chances are you will not get it right the first time. But where do you even begin? Let’s explore the important considerations that go into product pricing. Read more…

April 17, 2023 — Have you ever wondered if things could have been done differently? But not sure how? Well, then, do not fall in love with the solution, but fall in love with the problem! Here’s an article to dive deep into how design thinking could do just that. Read more…