Smashing Newsletter: Issue #527

Editorial

Technology evolves and changes fast, and people — the way we think, believe, speak, act — change with it. But our habits and our ways of working don’t change that quickly. And especially in times when everything is moving so fast, we need to reduce confusion to make better decisions as we change.

That’s why in this newsletter, we focus on psychology and human behavior — and how to prevent miscommunication, poor messaging, and wrong conclusions down the line.

SmashingConf NYC 2025 — A friendly setup, with chairs on stage and speakers answering questions from the audience — with Catt Small on stage. Photo by Marc Thiele. Jump to the details.

This week we are traveling for SmashingConf NY 2025 🇺🇸 — our last SmashingConf this year, all around UX, design systems, AI, accessibility — along with practical workshops on dashboards, complex UIs, CSS and AI. Jump to the last tickets!

And if you prefer online learning, we have quite a few online workshops starting today and in the next weeks:

Why You Will Not Be Replaced by AI — Free workshop by yours truly (2h + Q&A). Check your time zone.

Designing Websites That Convert with Paul Boag,
Advanced Design Systems with Brad Frost,
Live UX Training: Design Patterns with Vitaly Friedman,
Design Patterns For AI Interfaces with Vitaly Friedman,
UX Strategy in Action with Susan Weinschenk,
Free workshop: Why You Will Not Be Replaced by AI with Vitaly Friedman (Nov 19, free!)

Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week, everyone, and we hope to see you in person and online soon!

— Vitaly

1. Cognition Catalog

Confirmation bias, halo effect, false memory — these are just three of the countless biases that affect how we think and make decisions. What makes it particularly hard to avoid them is that they often happen unconsciously, so understanding how cognitive biases work and how they manifest themselves is the first step towards mitigating their effect on your work.

Jeremy Miller’s Cognition Catalog is a fantastic resource for getting familiar with different types of biases so you can face them head-on. Currently featuring more than 60 biases in four categories, the catalog explores each bias’s history, real-world examples, and key takeaways for various roles in the tech industry. A new bias is added to the collection every week. Perfect for UX designers, product managers, engineers, and, of course, everyone else on the team. (cm)

2. UX Psychology Glossary

Whether you want to improve conversion rates, reduce churn, or increase productivity, there’s no way around psychology in UX. It helps you understand how users understand your product, so that you can build meaningful experiences that serve both your customers and your business. If you’re looking to freshen up your psychology knowledge, Peter Ramsey’s UX Psychology Glossary is for you.

The glossary describes psychological terms, design principles, and UX concepts that are useful when designing products — from cognitive load and framing to the curiosity gap and scarcity effect. Each term comes with a concise, one-sentence summary for easy reference and a more comprehensive explanation with examples and tips. (cm)

3. Laws Of UX

Fitt’s Law, Miller’s Law, the Serial Position Effect. Do you know what’s behind these names? If not (or in case you need a little refresher), Laws Of UX sheds more light on their meaning.

Created by Jon Yablonski, this lovely website explains 30 psychological key principles that designers can consider to create more intuitive, human-centered products and experiences. Highlighting key takeaways, origin, examples, and further reading resources for each principle, this is a resource you might want to keep close. (cm)

4. 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.

Smashing Online Events — 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:

Designing Websites That Convert UX
with Paul Boag. Sep 30 – Oct 9
Advanced Design Systems Workflow
with Brad Frost. Oct 1–10
Live UX Training + video course UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Oct 17 – Nov 17
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. Dec 1 – 12
Jump to all workshops →

5. Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet

Cognitive biases can be unfair and sometimes counter-productive. However, they are the only tools we have to process the world around us. So, as harmful as they can be, cognitive biases can also be useful to prevent us from drowning in information overload.

To help you make sense of cognitive biases, how they are useful, and the trade-offs they bring along, Buster Benson tackled the mammoth task and boiled down Wikipedia’s massive list of biases into an organized, easy-to-reference cheat sheet that groups biases by the mental problem they are trying to address. One for the bookmarks. (cm)

6. Psychology Insights Cookbook

Behavioral science helps take the guesswork out of your design decisions and backs them up with scientific findings about how people act and react. If you plan to reference behavioral science in your design work, the Coglode Behavioral Design System is for you. It’s a fantastic tool to help you turn hunches into more objective, evidence-based decisions.

At the heart of the Figma library is a suite of over 50 “nugget badges.” Each nugget badge distills a behavioral science concept into just a few words or, if you prefer, into an easy-to-recognize image. To aid memory, the nuggets are color-coded by use, e.g., branding, product development, pricing, or conversion, and link back to the Coglode Cookbook where you can find more data and takeaways on each concept. A handy little helper to make behavioral science a natural part of your team’s design workflow. (cm)

7. Cognitive Bias Sketches

You want to learn more about cognitive biases, but don’t have time to dig into the more comprehensive guides? Then the Cognitive Bias Sketches that Jono Hey created might be for you.

Each of Jono’s 39 sketches sums up the main idea of a particular cognitive bias in a quick drawing or illustration. A great foundation to approach the world of cognitive biases without feeling overwhelmed. (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).

September 30, 2025 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #527

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