August 4, 2026 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #570
This newsletter issue was sent out to 175,426 subscribers on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.
Editorial
Over the years, we’ve learned quite a few things about accessibility. Yet at the same time, there are many new challenges that now emerge — from voice accessibility and AI accessibility to accessible emoji and inclusive motion. In this newsletter, we dive right into that — with a few useful helpers along the way.
We’ll also dive into accessibility at SmashingConf Freiburg 2026 🇩🇪 — our next conference stop this year, with knowledgeable experts on design, front-end, accessibility — and plenty of hands-on workshops. Jump to last tickets →
In the meantime, we’re adding more and more insightful online workshops on frontend and UX day by day:
- Spotting Accessibility Issues Early Free
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 1 - Design Patterns For Complex UIs and Enterprise UX UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 2–3 - Naming Design Systems DS
with Samantha Gordashko. Sep 8–22 - Smart Interface Design Patterns Live UX Training UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11 – Oct 12 - Accessibility For Designers UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 21–29 - How To Measure UX and Design Impact UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + live UX training - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + live UX training - Jump to all workshops →
Happy learning and wishing you a fantastic rest of the week!
— Vitaly
1. Inclusive Motion
A parallax scroll effect causing dizziness or a flashing button triggering a headache or even a seizure — motion effects can become a hazard for motion-sensitive people. To protect your users from potential harm, Stefan Chitu introduces an animation guardrails framework which you can use to design and engineer safe, resilient, and inclusive motion.
2. Designing For People With Anxiety
Anxiety makes it difficult to process information, make decisions, and stay focused, and still it is often overlooked in discussions around accessibility. Demelza Feltham shines a light on designing for people with anxiety to help you create user experiences that reduce cognitive load and feel calmer and clearer for everyone.
3. Accessible Emojis And Icons
Emojis and icons are a fun way to add some personality to a message. However, for people with visual or cognitive disabilities, they can easily lead to misunderstandings and unclear communication. To avoid pitfalls, Elle Smith summarized everything you need to know to make your emojis and icons screen-reader accessible, whether it’s in your HTML or your emails and social media posts.
4. Inaccessible AI-Generated UI
AI code-generation tools only need a few seconds to produce a React component. And while the visual output might look correct, chances are that the semantic information that assistive technology relies on is almost non-existent. To fix that, Durgesh Rajubhai Pawar shares a five-layer enforcement system for semantic correctness in LLM-generated components.
5. Accessibility Quest
Ready to put your accessibility knowledge to the test? Then the a11.quest quiz is for you. Created by Dave Davies as a drill to help him study for the Web Accessibility Specialist exam, the quiz features 128 questions to test your accessibility skills. Every answer comes with an explanation and links to the official docs in case you want to dig deeper.
6. Voice Accessibility
Smart speakers, in-car systems, customer support — using voice to access content has become more and more common. So, what do we need to consider when designing solutions with voice commands or communication so that no one is left out? Blayne Phillips shares tips and tricks for designing inclusive voice-based experiences.
If you want to dive deeper into designing products that rely on audio outputs, also be sure to check out Vitaly’s post on Linkedin. In it, he compiled practical guidelines and Figma toolkits to help you design better voice UX.
7. Accessible Modal Dialog
Focus handling and keyboard and screen reader support are where a lot of modal dialogs quietly fall apart. Agustin Barrientos wrote a practical guide that takes you step by step through the process of building a reusable, accessible modal. It builds on top of the native <dialog> element and covers all the fine little details you need to consider to fill the gaps that <dialog> leaves.
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:
- Spotting Accessibility Issues Early Free
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 1 - Design Patterns For Complex UIs and Enterprise UX UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 2–3 - Naming Design Systems DS
with Samantha Gordashko. Sep 8–22 - Interface Design Patterns Live UX Training UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11 – Oct 12 - Accessibility For Designers UX
with Stéphanie Walter. Sep 21–29 - How To Measure UX and Design Impact UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + live UX training - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + live 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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