

Smashing Magazine's long-running, single-track conference for designers and front-end practitioners.
SmashingConf is the conference arm of Smashing Magazine, hosted across cities including New York and Amsterdam, with occasional online editions. It is known for a friendly single-track format and a strongly curated, practical programme.
Content spans user experience, design systems, interface design, and front-end craft, with growing coverage of AI in the design and build process. Vitaly Friedman, Smashing's co-founder, hosts and curates the event.








Lately, I've been talking websites into existence. Not metaphorically, but actually sitting in important meetings with people — clients, collaborators, my wife, friends, neighbors — watching real websites materialize in front of us as we converse.

Argues that feedback-trained chatbots flatter users and discourage critical thinking, and proposes interface toggles and model changes to make AI a challenging intellectual partner rather than a passive assistant.


