September 23, 2025 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #526
This newsletter issue was sent out to 184,730 subscribers on Tuesday, September 23, 2025.
Editorial
Design patterns! In today’s issue, we explore how to design experiences for challenging and confusing interactions — from bulk import and context menus to chat UIs, loading indicators, user engagement, and social proof. With plenty of practical examples and guides to keep close.
In under 2 weeks, we’ll be travelling to SmashingConf New York 2025 🇺🇸, with sessions and workshops on:
- Interactive, Accessible Components, with Steph Eckles,
- Practical Dashboards, with Nick Desbarats,
- Designing For Complex UIs, with Vitaly Friedman,
- Modern CSS Architecture, with Miriam Suzanne,
- Design Patterns For AI, with Vitaly Friedman.
We’ve also just launched a new free online workshop on “Why You Will Not Be Replaced By AI”, a 2h 30mins session, going into all the fine details about AI and the skills we all need to create AI experiences that people understand, use and love. November 19, 2025. Free for everyone!
Finally, don't miss Smashing Meets Music 🎵, our friendly get-together for people who love music, DJing, and coding for music. Wednesday, October 22. Don't miss that one!.
— Vitaly
1. Bulk Import UX
Bulk upload features are challenging to design. We not only need to consider the technical side of things like messy data, edge cases, encoding formats, and error validation, but we also need to provide clear instructions that make it easy for users to fix errors. And that’s where a lot of bulk upload features are lacking. So, how can we do better? How can we improve the bulk uploading experience?
Livinda Christy wrote a case study in which she dives deep into common issues and challenges that bulk upload features bring along and how they can be solved. Drawing on her experience from improving bulk upload in an online recruiting tool, she takes you through the steps she took to create a hassle-free file import, while also defending her design decisions to stakeholders. Lots of practical takeaways for your own work are guaranteed. (cm)
2. Context Menus UX
From macOS to Windows, from Xerox Parc to the web, context menus have existed for decades. However, as long as they have been around and as widespread as they are, they still behave differently across web apps, which means that users have to relearn what is possible in each new app they use. But what could a context menu look like that is so intuitive to use that users don’t even have to think about it?
In his article “Building like it’s 1984: A comprehensive guide to creating intuitive context menus,” Michael Villar takes us through the basics, as well as some more advanced interactions, for building seamless context menus. He explores everything from positioning the context menu and adding keyboard navigation to giving intuitive access to submenus and dealing with content overflow. (cm)
3. Chat Interfaces UX
As many product teams race to not fall behind on AI, AI chat interfaces are becoming an obvious choice every time an AI initiative is launched. However, we need to be careful how we implement them. Adding AI to keep up with the trend doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve added real value for our users — in fact, in the worst case, it can even erode trust in our product.
To prevent that from happening, Vitaly shares practical guidelines for designing more useful, and less annoying, AI chat interfaces. He explores how we can make it clear to users that they are chatting with a bot, not a human, how we can help them articulate their intent, and how we can adapt the chat component to different needs (e.g., multitasking, complex tasks, changing context). Practical tips you can apply to your chat interfaces right away. (cm)
4. Upcoming Workshops and Events
That’s right! We run online workshops on frontend and design, but also friendly community events around accessibility, performance, and UX. 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.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Designing Websites That Convert UX
with Paul Boag. Sep 30 – Oct 9 - Advanced Design Systems Workflow
with Brad Frost. Oct 1–10 - Live Interface Design Patterns UX Training UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Oct 17 – Nov 17 - Smashing Meets Music Dev
with Samantha Gordashko, Brad Frost, André Michelle. Oct 22 - Designing Better Products Masterclass UX UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Oct 21 – Nov 4 - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Oct 30 – Nov 13 - How To Measure UX and Design Impact UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video + live UX training. - Jump to all workshops →
5. Loading And Progress Indicators
Whether it’s loading a webpage, processing a transaction, or downloading content — often there’s no way around waiting. Of course, the primary focus should always lie on improving performance and responsiveness, but sometimes that’s not enough. To help you enhance the waiting experience, Taras Bakusevych shares valuable tips and best practices for loading and progress indicators.
In his post, Taras dives deeper into the psychology of waiting and explores how loading and progress indicators can enhance usability, reduce user frustration, and create a positive perception of your page’s or system’s responsiveness. You’ll also learn how to select the right loader based on the anticipated waiting time and what else to keep in mind to make the waiting experience seamless and engaging. (cm)
6. Maximizing User Engagement
UX strategies for maximizing user engagement are based on psychological principles and behavior patterns that are often outside a user’s control. So whenever we employ them, we need to weigh our design decisions responsibly to not cause harm by creating addictive products. Taras Bakusevych wrote a wonderful post in which he shines a light on UX strategies that drive user growth and retention without exploiting users.
Based on popular behavioral design frameworks, Taras developed a unified formula for fostering long-term user engagement: the Sustainable Engagement Loop. Designed as a cyclical process, it builds and maintains habits in six key stages — from prompting users to take action to fostering ongoing engagement. To prevent harmful consequences like doomscrolling, unhealthy competition, and social comparison, Taras also highlights ethical considerations to keep in mind. A must-read for every designer. (cm)
7. Social Proof
As humans, we have the tendency to follow the actions of others when we are uncertain about something. It assures us that we “behave correctly” and shows our desire to fit in. That’s where social proof comes in. Whether it’s through customer reviews, testimonials, or expert approvals, social proof builds trust and credibility by showing that others have found value in a product or service.
If you’re looking for practical examples of social proof strategies, be sure to check out Social Proof Examples. The site features 191 real-world social proof examples that go way beyond good ol’ reviews. Milestone celebrations, walls of love, authority metrics, and project portfolios are just a few of the types of social proof that are waiting to be discovered in the collection. (cm)
8. Meet Accessible UX Research, A Brand-New Smashing Book 📚
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. For our newest book, we have teamed up with Dr. Michele A. Williams: Meet “Accessible UX Research.”
“Accessible UX Research” is your practical guide to making UX research more inclusive of participants with different needs — from planning and recruiting to facilitation, asking better questions, avoiding bias, and building trust. Print edition shipping Fall 2025. eBook also available for download in Fall 2025. Pre-order the book, and save off the full price.
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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