Smashing Magazine editorial newsletter

Child-centered design, UX research toolkit for playtesting, intrinsic motivation, designing for little fingers. Issue #578 • Sep 29, 2026 • View in the browser Hola Smashing Friends, Designing for children is difficult. Children tend to lose focus and motivation. They quit when they get bored, and they move on if they can’t get anywhere quickly enough. They need steady achievements. So we need to appreciate, reward, and encourage small wins to develop habits and support learning — with progress tracking and gamification. So how do we do just that? In this newsletter, we dive into just that — with useful articles and resources to keep nearby. A Practical Guide To Designing For Children Designing For Kids Is Not Child’s Play A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children We’ll also be diving into UX and design at our upcoming SmashingConf Amsterdam 2027 🇳🇱 and SmashingConf Freiburg 2027 🇩🇪 — with a lovely mix of friendly people, insightful conversations, unforgettable networking. We’d love to see you there! Until then, we’ve got your back covered with our fantastic line-up of online workshops, without needing to leave your desk: Resilient & Maintainable CSS Dev with Miriam Suzanne. Oct 1–15 Designing Websites That Convert UX with Paul Boag. Oct 7 Accessible Frontend Patterns Dev with Manuel Matuzović. Oct 12 – Nov 2 Measure UX And Design Impact UX + self-paced course with Vitaly Friedman. Oct 20 – Nov 3 Building Modern HTML Emails Dev with Rémi Parmentier. Oct 26 –29 Deep Dive On Accessibility Testing Dev with Manuel Matuzović. Nov 9–23 Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX + self-paced course with Vitaly Friedman. Nov 16–24 Jump to all workshops → — Vitaly 1. Child-Centered Design Designing for children most often happens without actively involving them in the process. To change that, Save the Children Finland published a free handbook with activities, games, design processes, and tips on how to include children in actual design efforts. Listening to their needs, views, and opinions not only helps teams develop more meaningful experiences but also makes children feel that their opinions matter and that they too can make a difference. 2. Playtesting With Kids Getting meaningful feedback from kids looks very different from research with adults. Whether you’re looking for general tips on what to keep in mind during an interview session with kids or practical, child-friendly ideas to test if they know how to use your product, Playtest with Kids has got you covered. The methods, techniques, and examples are informed by experts in the field and vetted by child development researchers. 3. Intrinsic Motivation How do you define if a game was fun? As Paula Gomes shows, intrinsic motivation gives us a framework for measuring fun. When we do something out of intrinsic motivation, we do it simply because we enjoy the activity. It doesn’t need any external rewards or pressure for us to engage in it. In her guide to increasing intrinsic motivation, Paula explores the psychological needs that must be met in order to have intrinsic motivation and how this can be applied to designing games. 4. Designing Child-Friendly Experiences As they venture out into the digital world, children are still developing their physical and mental abilities, and digital products need to account for that. Jasmine Bilham wrote a practical guide with eight things to consider when designing for children. It covers everything from defining your target age group to getting visual styling, storytelling, navigation, and parental controls right. 5. Designing For Children Over the years, UXmatters has grown an archive of articles on designing for children. They cover foundations such as use of color and graphics, key considerations and guidelines for addressing children’s needs through design, but also topics such as enhancing child-safety features in smart devices. A useful resource for everyone who wants to dive deeper into desig