March 17, 2026 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #550
This newsletter issue was sent out to 177,290 subscribers on Tuesday, March 17, 2026.
Editorial
How do we design voice interfaces? Compared to typing, voice is often faster and more expressive. But navigating a voice conversation is more difficult, and we need our digital products to hit just the right tones at the right time — from being supportive when needed to being concise when desired.
In today’s newsletter issue, we dive into voice UX — from voice principles and tone mapping to voice UX in B2B to designing a voice interface from scratch.
On another note, it’s really quite amazing to see all the things we can do with CSS nowadays. We’ve invited three absolute CSS experts for our upcoming Meets Style Sheets session to share their stories, tools, tips, and practices with all of us. Tickets are free for our community, so why not join and spread the love!
We’re also exploring different topics in our online workshops, including designing better products and UX experiences:
- Figma Workflow Masterclass UX
with Christine Vallaure. Mar 18–24 - UX Design Leadership Masterclass UX
with Paul Boag. Mar 18–26 - Designing Better Products Masterclass UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Mar 23 – Apr 6 - How To Measure UX & Design Impact UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 31 – Apr 10 - Jump to all workshops →
That’s all for now, dear folks! Wishing you a tremendous rest of the week ahead.
Yours truly,
— Vitaly
1. Voice Design Principles
Whether you’re still at the very beginning of your voice design journey or already working on a voice interface, Ben Sauer’s summary of voice design principles sure will come in handy. To help you design engaging, user-friendly voice interfaces, he compiled the main takeaways from articles, books, and other useful resources into a master list of voice design principles, guidelines, and best practices.
2. Voice Design System
How to include voice design in a design system? The Orange Design System is a great example of how it can be done. It defines Orange’s voice identity and qualities that must be present in dialogue, and offers linguistic guidance to form the conversation, handle users’ natural forms of expression, and structure and personalize interactions.
3. Designing A Persona For An Assistant
Designing a character for your virtual assistant helps create a consistent, trustworthy experience. So, what do you need to consider when doing so? James Walsh shares the design principles and best practices that guide the IBM team in building their conversation and voice user interfaces.
4. Voice UI Guide
How can you guide users effectively through a voice interface? How can you support voice with visual elements? And how does a user’s environment influence the interface? The VUI Guide helps you solve the challenges that designing for voice brings along. It is an open-source, living style guide filled with useful tips, tools, and a checklist that takes you step by step through the process of designing a voice user interface.
5. Voice Principles And Tone Mapping
Fun or serious, concise or detailed — the voice and tone of your user interface shape how people perceive your brand. To help you be consistent in your messaging, whether it’s in UX writing or when designing a voice assistant, Paavan Buddhdev wrote a practical guide to voice and tone. In it, he shares tips for developing voice principles and creating a tone map to keep your communication on brand.
6. Voice UX For B2B
Whether it’s in hospitals, control rooms, or logistics hubs, voice interfaces in high-stakes environments must go far beyond basic commands. The team at Koru UX has published a comprehensive guide to designing voice UX for B2B. It includes a framework for designing voice interactions in high-trust settings and explores real-world examples, along with tool and tech stack recommendations.
7. Designing A Voice Interface
Designing a voice user interface is easier than you may think, argues Darek Bittner, since the design process remains largely the same as that of a visual UI. In his blog post on the topic, he explores some of the key nuances specific to designing voice user interfaces and provides a roadmap you can follow to prototype and test your VUI.
8. Accessible UX Research, Now Shipping 📚
We’ve got exciting news! Our newest Smashing book, Accessible UX Research by Michele A. Williams, is finally shipping worldwide! Get the book right away or order the eBook for instant download.
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. Download a free sample (PDF, 2.3MB) or get the book right away.
9. 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.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Figma Workflow Masterclass UX
with Christine Vallaure. Mar 18–24 - UX Design Leadership Masterclass UX
with Paul Boag. Mar 18–26 - Designing Better Products Masterclass UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Mar 23 – Apr 6 - How To Measure UX & Design Impact UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 31 – Apr 10 - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + UX Training - Jump to all workshops →
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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