April 28, 2026 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #556
This newsletter issue was sent out to 176,308 subscribers on Tuesday, April 28, 2026.
Editorial
Many experiences on the web are conversations. Not in terms of chat or messaging, but rather conversations between a product and an end user. Words matter, and the way they are chosen, how they are written, and how they are put together all convey something. That something is a notion of kindness, politeness, respect, sincerity — or the opposite of it all.
In this newsletter, we focus on words in digital products — from headlines and calls to action to pronouns, impactful content design, and how it is reflected in design systems.
On our end, we are looking into adding more online workshops on frontend and UX on a variety of topics:
- Resilient & Maintainable CSS Dev
with Miriam Suzanne. June 2–10 - Design Patterns For AI 2026 + self-paced video course UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Jun 16–30 - Naming Design Systems DS
with Samantha Gordashko. Sep 8–22 - Mini-Workshop: Design Patterns For Complex UIs and Enterprise UX UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 2–3 - Interface Design Patterns Live UX Training UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11 – Oct 12 - Accessibility For Designers UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 21–29 - Jump to all workshops →
Today’s newsletter is kindly powered by our friends at BoldSign, who have built a secure, developer-friendly e-signature platform for embedding signing workflows directly into applications. With its REST eSignature API and SDKs, you cannot only send signature requests, track status in real time, and retrieve signed documents, but also enjoy branded signing experiences for a seamless user journey.
Hats off to the BoldSign team for their hard work and continued support of the web community! 🧡
— Vitaly
1. Headlines For UX Writers
With just a few words to get your message across, writing a good headline can be a challenge. If you’re looking for some inspiration, Websiteheadlines.com showcases great headline examples from across the web. All the headlines in the collection are tagged, and you can filter them by stylistic technique or meaning to narrow down your search.
2. Your Vs. My
Do you usually write “My account” or “Your account” when designing an interface? And does it actually matter? In his guide to shaping personality with pronouns, Vitaly shines a light on the different meanings that pronouns carry so that you can make a more informed decision and choose the one that best matches your product.
3. UX Copy Ecosystem
A UX copy ecosystem is your greatest asset for communicating with your customers. It’s the central place to document and archive your copy to help ensure brand consistency and avoid rework. Now, where to begin, if you want to set up a UX copy ecosystem? Jürgen Zimmermann compiled valuable tips to get you up and running quickly.
4. Join Vs. Register Vs. Sign Up
Sign up, register, join — they all convey the same idea, but with slightly different nuances. Riya Jawandhiya went down the rabbit hole to learn more about what each word reflects under the surface. Based on her insights, she created a cheat sheet to help you match the word to the effort you’re asking from your users when they create an account.
5. Designing Content For Impact
Words matter, but so does the structure of your content. It impacts how easily users can understand and navigate the information presented, and that in turn can improve engagement. Lauren Pope created a matrix to help you choose the right narrative structure for your content, considering complexity and scope.
6. Content Design In Design Systems
You don’t need to be a natural-born writer to write good UX copy. Vitaly summarized practical UX writing guidelines that help anyone take their copy to the next level by avoiding confusion and improving clarity. In addition to these golden rules, the guide also includes real-world examples of how to incorporate content design into design systems.
7. A Practical Guide To Content Design
Content design goes much deeper than a message in a pop-up or a set of docs. And it goes far beyond words and other obvious pieces of content like videos, infographics, or images. Linette Voller explores what’s beyond the surface of content design to help you create experiences that are more intuitive and cater better to users’ needs.
8. Writing As Prototyping
UI wireframes made from text? That’s exactly what Wiretext does. Created by Daniel Howells, the tool lets you create wireframes, diagrams, and mockups as Unicode box-drawing characters, then export them as clean text. Perfect for docs, issues, PRs, or pasting into a text prompt.
9. 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.
10. 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:
- Resilient & Maintainable CSS Dev
with Miriam Suzanne. June 2–10 - Design Patterns For AI 2026 + self-paced video course UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Jun 16–30 - Naming Design Systems Design Systems
with Samantha Gordashko. Sep 8–22 - Mini-Workshop: Design Patterns For Complex UIs and Enterprise UX UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 2–3 - Interface Design Patterns Live UX Training UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11 – Oct 12 - Measure UX and Design Impact + self-paced video course UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 15ndash;29 - Accessibility For Designers UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 21–29 - 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).
Smashing Newsletter
Front-end, design and UX. Sent out 1× a week.You can always unsubscribe with just one click.