Adding delight everywhere backfires. This post compares how anime handles a tonal shift against the Marvel background-gag habit, then covers Don Norman’s three levels and the microinteractions that hold a flow together.
Ten years of persuasive design taught me that badges do not fix retention. This is how I use the COM-B model to work out whether a user is stuck on capability, opportunity or motivation before adding a nudge.
Chromium made the native select element styleable. This walks through appearance: base-select, the ::picker pseudo-element, sibling-index() for per-option maths, and the anchor positioning that makes a radial picker possible, without giving up keyboard support.
A pass through the CSS landing in browsers now: random() and random-item(), clip-path folded corners, the containing-block catch in anchor positioning, and tabular-nums for WooCommerce dashboards that refuse to sit still.
SmashingConf Amsterdam runs in April 2026 at the Pathé Tuschinski. What pulled me in is the live-work format: speakers working through CSS and accessibility problems on stage instead of walking an audience through finished slides.
Chromium ships corner-shape, so beveled and scooped corners no longer need clip-path or SVG masks. What each value does, how it pairs with border-radius, and how to ship it behind @supports while Firefox and Safari get plain rounded corners.
Monikka Spruyt left corporate training to start Connect Holistic Health, and handed the site build to WordPress design experts instead of learning the stack herself. Why that trade usually pays off.
Magic numbers like z-index: 99999 are guesses. How I set up z-index tokens in CSS variables, pair a modal with its backdrop using calc(), and use isolation to keep a component’s layering inside the component.
AI raised the floor on production, and that changed what designers are actually paid for. Here is where human strategy still decides the outcome, and why judgment now carries the accountability.
The Smashing Magazine wallpaper set for March 2026, including the Cascade Style Sheet design, plus the add_image_size code I use so high-res art does not slow down a WordPress theme.