Free Lesson

Fixing Frustrating Design Patterns In 2026

90 min
Jul 8, 2026 11:30 AM
Virtual (Zoom)

In this video

What you'll learn

Accidental complexity

Over-engineered menus, infinite scroll, crowded dashboards, hidden vs. disabled, Cancel/X buttons, AI confidence scores.

Frustrating interactions

Poor live validation, broken progress indicators, voice UX challenges, authentication UX, Undo vs. Confirm.

Broken experiences

Nested modals, disappearing toasts, notifications overload, inaccessible drag'n'drop, generic error messages.

Why this topic matters

Not a day passes by without you solving fire hydrant puzzles, getting lost with nested modals and generic error messages. These patterns are so widespread we've stopped noticing them.

But they come at a severe cost: failures compound — in support tickets, drop-offs, errors and eroded trust. Let’s see how we can fix that!

You'll learn from

Vitaly Friedman

Vitaly Friedman

20 years in UX • Senior UX Lead & Advisor @ EU Parliament • Smashing

Worked / Taught at
European Parliament
REWE
Alliander
Zalando
Otto Group

Previously at

European Parliament
Lexware
Otto Group
Zalando
SmashingConf
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