One web question per episode, wrapped in mock adverts.
Smashing Podcast puts one plain question about building for the web to a guest, from what service design is to why HTML controls are so hard to style. The bookends are silly, with mock adverts for 'free-range HTML' and a sign-off pointing to the supermarket by the cat food, but the interviews are earnest and specific.
PRESS PLAY
Smashing Podcast is the interview show from Smashing Magazine, and its titles make the method plain. What is service design? What is a tech union? How do you run a grassroots conference? Each episode takes one question like that and talks it through with a guest. Guests thank Drew for having them, and two recall earlier chats. The hands-on web topics get specific. Alvin Bryan, who mentions having written for the magazine, discusses a headless CMS that is API-driven, able to live apart from the site it feeds. The interviewer admits to a long-held preference for self-hosting that has mellowed over the years, and Bryan notes that heavy traffic to a single API can make self-hosting a problem. Chris Ferdinandi, discussing the transitional web, expects the platform to absorb the best parts of React the way it absorbed jQuery, often under clunkier names. Ferdinandi also wishes native JavaScript had the API consistency those libraries got right. The HTML controls episode, with Stephanie Stimac and Melanie Richards, is framed around why those controls are so hard to style and how that might change. Other episodes turn to how the work itself is organised. The service design episode asks how the discipline differs from user experience design, and Lou Downe explains why an ambitious user journey map can meet a stakeholder warning against boiling the ocean. The cause, in Downe's telling, is power, control and Conway's law: organisations build services in their own shape. Ethan Marcotte discusses tech unions in terms of power, pointing to collective bargaining and to a contract that secured protections against at-will employment. Alex Older of WDC covers the economics of a small community event, from keeping ticket prices reasonable for freelancers to absorbing the occasional loss. The packaging is deliberately daft. Cold opens borrow the patter of adverts, selling organic free-range HTML, wild freshwater CSS and code that comes out spotless. A quick roundup of new Smashing Magazine articles follows, with pieces on front-end tools, TypeScript, WordPress, CSS features usable today and, from Vitaly Friedman, the messiness of the design process. Guests are asked for parting words, and the sign-off points to the supermarket, by the cat food. What a listener gets is one subject made clear by a guest willing to get specific, plus a reading list to follow it.
Made for: Suits a web designer or developer who likes one subject handled at a time in conversation, from headless CMSs and HTML controls to where the web platform is heading. It also fits a listener interested in the working side of the industry, such as service design, tech unions and small community conferences.
What sets it apart: Alongside hands-on topics like CMS architecture and HTML controls, it makes room for how web work is organised, from Conway's law to collective bargaining to conference ticket pricing. Question-style titles and parody-advert cold opens make each subject obvious and keep the tone light.
An interview show from your friends at Smashing Magazine. Drew McLellan and Vitaly Friedman talk to design and development experts about their work on the web, as well as catching you up with the latest news and articles at Smashing Magazine. Suitable for cats.
A user journey map walks into an org chart; your next design problem just acquired colleagues.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at why joining up a service often means confronting the organization behind it.
Service design is treated as a practical test of whether an organization can connect an experience it has split across teams. The episode sets the field beside familiar user experience design, then shows how a user journey map can expose the handoffs, gaps, and coordination…
A grounded case for collective power in a tech workplace shaped by uneven privilege.
Tech unions come through as a question of workplace power, not a niche labor subplot. Ethan Marcotte frames collective bargaining as a way for workers to sit across from management and define wages, benefits, and working conditions, while Drew draws out why acting with…
A grounded look at the pricing, audience mix, and fragile economics behind a small web conference.
Running a small industry event comes across here as hands-on community work, shaped by ticket prices, audience mix, and the real chance of losing money.
A grounded guide to headless CMS trade-offs, from API flexibility and Strapi to the upkeep behind self-hosting.
Headless CMSs come into focus once the discussion moves past definitions and into what happens when an API-backed content setup has to run in production.
A grounded look at how web libraries become browser habits, and why native APIs still make developers reach for tools.
The transitional web comes through as a slow handoff rather than a clean break. React's best ideas may find their way into the browser under different labels, while the platform still leaves enough friction to keep developers leaning on tooling.
Lean websites, lower waste, clearer choices.
WordPress talk with the live edges left in.
WordPress work, news, and community notes.
WordPress, traced through its working community.
Practical web tools without the code fog.
Web development talk with real production scars.
Lou Downe, founder of the School of Good Services and author of Good Services, argues on Smashing Podcast that service design is about helping people do something, not about internal service labels.
Ethan Marcotte says unions let tech workers negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions collectively.
Alex Older says WDC keeps costs near a freelancer's day rate by capping the ticket at "a hundred pounds."
Alvin Bryan, a developer advocate at Contentful, explains headless CMS as a system where content is retrieved with an API instead of being tied to one web page.
Chris Ferdinandi and Drew McLellan trace the web's cycle from jQuery to `querySelectorAll`, `classList`, and newer tools like Preact, Solid, Svelte, and Astro.
On the Smashing Podcast, host Vitaly Friedman asks Slava Shestopalov what design management involves and how it differs from design.
Rachel Andrew explains Baseline, a WebDX community effort launched with Google and Mozilla, as a way to see which web features work across modern browsers.
Mei Shang says a design process should fit the problem, available evidence, and project timeline.
An interview with Microsoft's Stephanie Stymack and Melanie Richards about styling HTML controls and future changes.
An interview with Harry Roberts about web performance in 2021, plus updates on Smashing Magazine articles.
A clip show looking back at 2020 episodes, featuring interviews with design and development experts.
An interview with a core team member about the new version 3 release and migration, plus weekly article updates on web design and development.