This is the second post in a short series called Design Principles Unpacked.

In each article, I take a design principle we use every day and look at it a little closer. Not to explain the rule. But to unpack the wisdom behind it. Because I believe our professional knowledge and experience can be leveraged beyond work. The way we design and build software shapes how we navigate everyday life.

Many of the principles we use to design software exist for a reason. They help us make things work. They help us make things simple. And that doesn’t stop at software.

Let’s unpack the next one: hierarchy.

Hierarchy Is About Order, Not Value

When we talk about hierarchy, we usually hear words like control, authority or power. That’s where much of the resistance to the word comes from.

Hierarchy feels organizational. Political. Something that limits freedom instead of enabling it.

But in design, hierarchy isn’t about restricting. Just like alignment, hierarchy is about guiding. It’s about creating flow. Not what matters more. But what comes first.

At its core, hierarchy is simply an order of importance. It doesn’t say one thing is better than another. It says one thing needs focus first. That distinction matters.

Without hierarchy, everything feels equally important. And suddenly, even getting started becomes hard.

You see this immediately in interfaces. If headlines, actions and paragraphs all get the same attention, nothing stands out. Users don’t know where to look. They spend time and energy figuring out what matters, often focusing on things that aren’t important to them.

Hierarchy answers a simple question: What should the user pay attention to first?

Not because an element is more worthy. But because it helps the user decide whether it’s relevant.

A good UI doesn’t force you to read everything. It gives you orientation. It helps you navigate. That’s not control. That’s guiding.

Hierarchy as Filtering, Not Control

Let’s unpack this principle outside of design. This is where hierarchy takes on a different tone. It stops sounding like guidance and starts feeling like control.

Everything needs approval. Everything goes through the chain. Nothing moves without permission. But that’s not a hierarchy problem. That’s an execution problem.

Hierarchy is about purpose. What matters depends on the goal.

Good hierarchy filters. It reduces noise. It protects focus. It filters what needs attention now, so the next person in line doesn’t waste time sorting it out themselves. When something matters, it moves up. When it doesn’t, it waits.

Hierarchy in Leadership

I’ve seen this most clearly in my leadership roles.

In large organizations, there is constant noise. Requests. Opinions. Priorities. If all of that hits a team directly, focus disappears. Not because people aren’t capable, but because attention gets disrupted.

As a design leader, that was my responsibility. Pass on only what was important to our goals. Protect the team. Filter the noise. The role of hierarchy there isn’t control. It’s filtering.

Leaders at higher levels don’t do everything. They decide what deserves attention now and what can wait. That isn’t all about authority. It’s about enabling autonomy.

Closure

Hierarchy isn’t about value. It’s about purpose. An order of importance that allows work to flow. Clarity over control. Purpose over power. Autonomy over authority.

When hierarchy is clear, flow is clear. And when flow is clear, freedom increases.

AI may be a normal part of daily life now, but the reality of implementing AI-powered tooling in the workplace is not so simple. Teams are moving faster, but workflows are becoming messier, more complex and more challenging to scale. AI is improving productivity at the individual and small-team level—but those gains aren't necessarily translating into consistent, scalable workflows across teams.

How do we know? In our 2025 Designer-Developer Collaboration survey, we asked 200+ respondents across design and development (including hybrid and leadership roles, as well) about the ways they’re leveraging new AI capabilities in their work. You can download the full report to see everything, but these were our top takeaways:

1. AI Is the Default—Maturity Is Not.

People are using AI: 84% of people, to be precise (or at least, 84% of the people who filled out our survey). This was divided among folks who are all in—taking “an AI-first approach across [their] entire process”—and folks who have AI tools regularly integrated or in experimental phases in their current workflows. Only 16% said they were avoiding the use of AI tools entirely.

The challenge is no longer simply adoption, but rather how to turn AI usage into a reliable, repeatable process.

2. Speed Is Real. Trust Is Conditional.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth right now on whether AI actually delivers its promises of improved productivity.

Our respondents were also mixed; a little over half said it was “moderately positive”, helping somewhat but with some limitations. And 33% found it to have a negative effect—split between being neutral (having no impact), moderately negative (added more work than saved), or significantly negative (disrupted workflow significantly). Only 16% felt strongly positive about it, claiming major time savings and quality improvements.

Speed isn’t an issue, but consistency is. We need tools and systems that can be trusted to produce reliable results in order to scale them across teams and businesses.

3. Collaboration Friction Still Matters

Despite all the new tooling AI has made available to us in the form of quick prototyping, design-to-code features and vibe coding … it hasn’t fixed the core design-dev “handoff” problem.

Only 21% of our participants reported “smooth handoffs and minimal issues” when we asked how they would rate the efficiency of the design implementation process. When things fall through the cracks, slower time-to-market (42%), rework (33%) and wasted time (36%) were listed as the top three consequences—all significant pain points at a time when we’re shipping new products and features faster than ever before.

This is where structured systems, shared standards and better-integrated tooling become critical.

4. 2026 Is About Operational Execution—Not Experimentation

People’s top priority coming into 2026 was the effective implementation of AI tools (39%), closely followed by building hybrid skillsets across their teams (29%). AI is reshaping the workplace, and both teams and individual roles are stretching to incorporate the disruption and turn it into something valuable.

This shift makes the path forward clear: AI needs to move from ad-hoc usage into systems, standards-aware workflows and production-ready processes that can scale. Whether or not that’s possible is something I suppose we’ll have to wait until next year’s survey to find out!

Want the Full Picture?

You can download the full report to see the answers to all the questions, including extra data analysis and interesting cross-sections. We think there’s a lot to learn, and the report is packed with helpful tips—as well as our own predictions on what to watch next.

Finally, if you took the survey: thank you so much! We genuinely enjoyed going through all the responses and seeing what everyone had to say. Keep an eye out for next year’s survey, and—until then—keep building and experimenting. We can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on!

See Full Report

Progress ThemeBuilder is a visual styling tool for customizing Telerik and Kendo UI components. Instead of digging through component documentation, ThemeBuilder provides an intuitive interface that allows us to see styling changes applied in real time. We can adjust colors, spacing, typography and more, then export production-ready CSS/SASS for our applications.

With the 2025 Q4 release, ThemeBuilder introduced two cool updates: a dedicated Typography module for centralized font management and component-level AI theming enhancements that give us finer control over AI-generated styles. In this article, we’ll spend a little time exploring both.

Setting Up a Theme with AI

Before jumping into the new features, let’s quickly set up a theme using AI to see how these enhancements fit into the workflow. In the ThemeBuilder interface, we’ll find a Generate panel where we can describe our desired theme in plain English. To get started, we can enter something like: “Create a clean, modern analytics theme with a cool blue-gray palette that feels data-driven and professional, suitable for a B2B software dashboard.”

After generating, the AI analyzes the description and produces a cohesive design system. Within seconds, we’ll see a complete theme applied across all components: buttons adopt a refined blue accent, inputs feature subtle borders with appropriate focus states, and data visualization components like charts and grids receive complementary styling that maintains readability.

This theme serves as a good starting point. The colors work well together, the spacing feels balanced and there’s visual consistency across the component library.

But what if we want to adjust the appearance of specific components without altering the entire theme? This is where the new component-level AI theming comes in.

Component-Level AI Theming

One of the challenges with theme generation with AI has been the “all or nothing” approach. Previous AI theming would regenerate our entire theme, which was great for starting fresh, but less helpful when we only wanted to tweak how buttons looked or adjust the styling of our data grid headers.

The new component-level AI theming enhancements solve this problem. We can now target individual components with AI-assisted styling while preserving our overall theme. Instead of manually hunting through variables and properties, we can use the AI theming interface to target just, say, the React Button component.

To see an example of this, we can enter a specific prompt like: “Make the primary button more prominent with a stronger visual presence and subtle gradient that draws attention for call-to-action scenarios.”

The AI adjusted only the primary (solid) button-related variables and styles, enhancing the gradient effect and adding a bit more visual weight to the component. The rest of our theme remains untouched!

We can continue refining our design in the same way. For example, we can apply an AI-driven override to the specific React TextBox component to make it more visually distinctive and usable.

We might use a prompt like: “Redesign the TextBox component with a more prominent border, a subtle background tint, stronger focus glow, and slightly increased padding to make input fields visually distinct and easier to scan in complex layouts.”

The AI updates only the TextBox-related styles while preserving other existing styles in the components module.

New Typography Module

While AI theming handles creative decisions, the new Typography module provides structured, systematic control over typography settings of our theme and is located alongside the existing modules like Metrics, Colors, etc.

In the module, we can define reusable typography variables that bundle multiple text properties into a single unit. Each variable can include font family, size, line height, letter spacing, text transform, font style and text decoration.

Once defined, these typography variables can be assigned to component parts like inputs, headers and form labels. Here’s an example of applying a custom typography set to the text of the Button component.

This provides both flexibility and long-term maintainability, allowing typography variables to be defined once and applied consistently across components with just a few clicks.

Wrap-up

The 2025 Q4 updates to ThemeBuilder address two common pain points.

• Component-level AI theming lets us refine specific parts of our theme without starting over, making AI generation more practical for real-world projects.
• The Typography module brings font management into a centralized, reusable system, letting us define text styles once and apply them consistently across components with ease.

Ready to try these new capabilities? Explore ThemeBuilder and see how the latest updates can streamline your theming workflow.

If you aren’t already using Telerik or Kendo UI components, see how ThemeBuilder complements these robust libraries in the Telerik DevCraft bundles.

Try Telerik DevCraft

This is the first post in a short series called Design Principles Unpacked.

In each article, I take a design principle we use every day and look at it a little closer. Not to explain the rule. But to unpack the wisdom behind it. Because I believe our professional knowledge and experience can be leveraged beyond work. The way we design and build software shapes how we navigate everyday life.

Many of the principles we use to design software exist for a reason. They help us make things work. They help us make things simple. And that doesn’t stop at software.

Let’s unpack the first one: alignment.

Aligned to What?

Alignment only exists in relation to something else. It can be other elements. Other people. Other ideas. But most of the time, the actual reference is invisible.

The word align comes from a line. A guideline.

Without a guideline, left and right are just positions. Consistent, but static.

A guideline gives direction. It helps us make decisions. It shows us where we’re heading and why.

Take text alignment as a simple example. Text aligns to an invisible line on the left. That line is the reference. We set that guideline to create balance. To make reading easy. To avoid wasting cognitive energy. Because we read in a specific direction. Our eyes follow a learned path.

Those considerations are the real reference. The intent is to transfer written information efficiently. Alignment supports that intent. It improves perception. And help the message get through.

Intentional Misalignment

In visual design, there’s also optical alignment. Two elements can be perfectly aligned and still feel wrong.

That’s because there’s the perfect pixel. And then there’s perceived alignment. To truly align, you sometimes have to misalign. Deliberately.

The guideline defines the intent. But the execution requires adaptation.

Alignment isn’t about snapping things into place. It’s about staying oriented toward what matters.

The Composition of Reality

Reality isn’t static either. It’s a moving composition.

If alignment depends on fixed positions, you run into trouble. “Left only” works as long as the context stays the same.

But when you align to a guideline instead of a position, you can realign. You know what you’re orienting toward. You can adjust without losing direction. That’s why alignment works best when it’s relative, not absolute. Reality never stands still.

When you’re in an argument, you’re misalignment. Not because one of you is wrong, but because you’re focused on positions. Look past left and right. Find the invisible guideline underneath.

Aligning doesn’t mean watering down your convictions. It means recognizing the line you use.

Conclusion

The real skill isn’t knowing where to place things. It’s learning to recognize the guideline you’re aligning to. And choosing your position with intent.

When you zoom out, alignment becomes more than a principle. It becomes a way of positioning yourself on purpose.

Your position will change. Because reality happens.

But the line you align to? That’s what makes it by design.

Next post: Design Principles Unpacked, No. 2 Hierarchy

I read a post on Reddit the other day from an enterprise UX designer. They’d just landed a new gig with more money and a lead title that felt like a promotion. On paper, it sounded like progress. But the reality hit fast. Just patch-and-fix work. Migrating Excel sheets into out-of-the-box tools and calling it innovation.

What they wrote stayed with me:

“My design soul feels like it’s dying. No passion, no creative spark. I feel like I’m drifting further and further from what drew me into UI/UX in the first place.”

That feeling is more common than people admit, and it often hits right after you climb the ladder.

The Climb That Feels Like Progress

Most designers climb the career ladder for understandable reasons. You get promoted into a lead position or move from startups into enterprise UX. You gain a bigger title, more stability, better pay and benefits.

With that comes the promise of impact and influence.

The early days seem fine. You’re suddenly exposed to large programs and complex systems. You deal with new domains and teams spread across regions. You sit in strategy meetings. You meet senior leaders. The climb gives you a sense of elevation. It feels like the right choice. It feels like progress.

You tell yourself you’re finally doing meaningful work. You’ve earned a seat at the table.

But there’s a quiet trade-off most people don’t notice. Only when you’re far enough up that you start feeling down.

The Valley of Despair

At first it’s the small things: more meetings, more alignment sessions and more approvals.

Your solution is defined by licensing agreements rather than user needs. Requests that are really just vendor configurations. Your influence shrinks even as your title grows. You feel the ceiling closing in.

The spark that pulled you into design—the curiosity, creativity and craft—starts to fade.

You still care. You still want to do great work. But the environment around you wants the result, not the process.

And then the questions arrive:

• Is this really how design works?
• Is this what I want to do?
• Where’s my passion?

It’s not a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s a sign that something’s happening to you.

And it has everything to do with scale.

The Mechanics of Scale

Enterprises operate very differently from individuals driven by craft.

At scale, companies optimize for predictability, repeatability and risk reduction.

• Unity over uniqueness.
• Stability over innovation.
• Delivery over craft.

Not because leaders hate your creativity. Not because designers aren’t valued or design isn’t wanted.

But because reducing variance makes it easier for thousands of people to move in the same way. Your passion—your desire to shape and craft—doesn’t fit easily into that machine.

The mechanics of scale lack the sensitivity for meaning. It feels like you’ve lost your passion or miscalculated your career. It’s easy to see this as a personal failure.

But the truth is you didn’t change. The environment did. And the way out begins with seeing it differently.

Back to Your Roots: Empathy

When designers feel lost, we often forget the tool that built our discipline: empathy.

Empathy is what lets you step out of your own head and see the world through someone else’s eyes. It’s how you reinterpret your reality, how you can recalibrate your perspective.

Empathy for the User

Start with someone else’s frustrations—your users’.

Their frustrations and needs give you back a sense of clarity about why your work matters. Their perspective lets you see who you’re really doing this for.

That Excel sheet, migrated into a cloud-based dashboard, might not change your life. But it can change theirs.

Users remind you that you still make an impact, even when it feels like you can’t fully practice your craft.

Empathy for the Business

Turning your empathy toward the business is less comfortable.

Understanding the business means acknowledging its constraints, priorities and pressures. It helps you see why innovation is slow, what the stakes are and what your boss is dealing with.

Empathy for the business doesn’t mean you capitulate. It lets you understand.

Understanding how the business works doesn’t fix everything, but it does reduce resentment. And resentment’s what holds you back.

When you see the system clearly, you stop interpreting constraints as personal attacks. You stop assuming incompetence. You recognize the environment around you.

And once you grasp that environment, you can design within it.

Empathy for Yourself

This is the hardest one.

Your own perspective is the one you can’t step away from. Your emotions are the ones you can’t ignore.

• Why does this feel frustrating?
• What exactly is painful here?
• Where am I feeling loss?

Self-empathy is more constructive than self-criticism. It makes you aware of your inner state.

And once you can see why you’re truly frustrated, you discover something greater than passion: purpose.

From Passion to Purpose

When you feel stuck, it’s tempting to think that “finding your passion” will fix everything. But passion alone won’t get you out.

The word pathos, the root in words like “empathy,” is about feeling and suffering—about what happens to you. It’s emotion.

And emotion comes from emovere: ex (out) + movere (move).

Emotion moves outward. It reacts. It signals. But emotion alone doesn’t move you forward. Purpose does.

Purpose comes from proponere—to put something forward. To place something ahead of you. To guide your next step.

Passion is what you feel in the moment. Purpose is what you do with that feeling.

And this is where empathy becomes a bridge. Empathy helps you look at the same reality and read it differently. It lets you recalibrate your perspective instead of staying locked in frustration. It shifts you from “how I feel” to “how I move.”

Once you understand the people you impact, the business you operate in and the reason you feel stuck, you have the first pieces of the puzzle that uncover your purpose.

Purpose isn’t a statement. It’s what moves you forward.

And once you see it, you can redesign your job, your role and your path. Even within constraints, you can bring that purpose forward.

Forward, Not Up

Early in my career, I saw the path the same way everyone else did: a ladder.

Later, when I was leading others on their path, I learned to nuance the direction. Not everybody thrives on an upward trajectory. Some are better off moving sideways. So I tailored progress and growth to the individual—vertical and lateral progressions.

But here’s the truth I learned far too late: Up, down, left or right don’t automatically mean forward.

I redesigned my career multiple times. Carved out new roles inside the same company. For years, it worked. Until it didn’t. My reality was defined by the mechanics of scale. I found myself stuck in the valley of despair.

So I left. No new job lined up. No master plan. Just space.

And in that space, I finally had enough room to look inward. To understand what I needed to do. To renew my perspective.

I rediscovered where I could move on purpose. I’m still defining that purpose. It’s still taking shape.

Closure

My career’s no longer about moving up. It’s about moving forward.

Not how I feel about what I do, but how I move with what I have to do.

That’s what progress is about: not just finding passion, but moving on purpose.

The Progress Telerik and Kendo UI 2026 Q1 release continues to bring AI directly into everyday application workflows, moving it more and more into practical, real-world scenarios, including improved accessibility in AI‑generated UIs.

At the same time, this first release of 2026 strengthens the core foundations you rely on, with latest framework support and integrations, enhanced UI customization tools and a growing set of new and improved components that make it easier to design, build and evolve complex applications.

Let the release speak for itself! Here’s a closer look at the key highlights shaping the Telerik and Kendo UI 2026 Q1 release.

AI-Powered Development and Document Workflows

[Preview] Agentic Tools for Telerik Document Processing Libraries (DPL)

Build intelligent document processing workflows with ease. The DPL Agentic Tools let users extract structured data, edit content, convert formats, generate new Excel or PDF files and perform analysis on Excel documents directly inside .NET apps with no separate services required.

DPL Agentic Tools are available with a Telerik or Kendo UI subscription.

New Agentic RAG .NET SDK

New Agentic RAG .NET SDK: .NET developers now have a straightforward way to integrate retrieval‑augmented generation workflows into their applications. Powered by our own Progress Agentic RAG, the SDK provides a stable foundation for creating context‑aware AI solutions. Available as a public NuGet package with sample integrations for Blazor, and .NET MAUI, the SDK makes it easy to ingest data, run semantic search, and build AI‑powered app experiences using familiar .NET patterns.

Improved Accessibility in Telerik Agentic UI Generator

The Agentic UI Generator now emphasizes the Telerik and Kendo UI component‑specific accessibility implementation details. It helps you apply these patterns consistently across your UI and surfaces relevant accessibility API references for the specific components you’re using.

The Agentic UI Generator is available with a Telerik or Kendo UI subscription.

AI Coding Assistants Improvements

The Telerik UI for Blazor validator tool is now available to help reduce hallucinations and improve overall code reliability. A new icons generation tool for existing and custom icons is also introduced with this release. The Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core/MVC and Blazor assistants are transitioned to native .NET NuGet distributions, making installation and adoption simpler and more enterprise friendly.

AI Coding Assistants are available with a Telerik or Kendo UI subscription.

AI Interface and Smart Components

New AI Smart Paste Component

Reduce manual typing and speed up data entry in your apps. The AI Smart Paste automatically converts unstructured text into structured inputs by mapping content from emails, documents or messages to the right fields with zero extra effort.

Learn more:

• Kendo UI for Angular AI Smart Paste
• KendoReact AI Smart Paste
• Kendo UI for jQuery AI Smart Paste
• Telerik UI for Blazor AI Smart Paste
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core AI Smart Paste
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC AI Smart Paste
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX AI Smart Paste

New PromptBox Component

Designed for seamless interaction with AI‑powered workflows, the PromptBox component provides a dedicated space where users can craft prompts, send messages and engage naturally with AI language models.

Learn more:

• Kendo UI for Angular PromptBox
• KendoReact PromptBox
• Kendo UI for jQuery PromptBox
• Telerik UI for Blazor PromptBox
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core PromptBox
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC PromptBox

SmartBox: Semantic Search and Prompting in Telerik and Kendo UI DataGrid

An AI-enabled DataGrid feature that combines natural-language prompting, keyword search and semantic search into a single experience, allowing users to query, filter and manipulate grid data using the interaction option that best fits their needs. Users can control the grid through prompts to apply actions such as filtering, sorting, highlighting and grouping.

Semantic Search enhances discovery by understanding intent and context, returning relevant results even when the exact search terms are not present in the data.

Learn more:

• Kendo UI for Angular Grid SmartBox
• KendoReact SmartBox
• Kendo UI for jQuery Grid SmartBox
• Telerik UI for Blazor Grid SmartBox
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core Grid SmartBox
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC Grid SmartBox

Smart Grid: AI Chat Integration Demo

See how integrating the Telerik and Kendo UI AI Chat with the Data Grid delivers a complete, end-to-end AI prompting experience over the grid multi-step flows and contextual interactions driven through the Chat component.

Learn more:

• Kendo UI for Angular Grid AI Chat Integration
• KendoReact Grid AI Chat Integration
• Kendo UI for jQuery Grid AI Chat Integration Demo
• Telerik UI for Blazor Grid AI Chat Integration Demo
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET Core Grid AI Chat Integration Demo
• Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC Grid AI Chat Integration Demo
• Telerik UI for .NET MAUI Grid AI Chat Integration

Telerik UI for Blazor: Microsoft.Extensions.AI Chat Component Integration

With native Microsoft.Extensions.AI integration, the Telerik UI for Blazor Chat now delivers an AI‑ready experience out of the box, automatically sending messages to a configured IChatClient and returning responses through the built‑in AI pipeline.

Richer UI Customization

Performance Updates in Progress ThemeBuilder

The UI customization tool loads and applies changes noticeably faster, so teams can preview, iterate and ship themes with less waiting and fewer interruptions.

Pixel‑Accurate Component Previews

Kendo UI components in ThemeBuilder now match production output, reducing styling surprises so what you design is what users see across variants and interaction states.

Enhanced Customization

Templates have been enhanced to expose more parts, states and variations, giving designers and developers finer control over visual details without custom workarounds.

New Classic Components

New DropDownTree in Telerik UI for Blazor

By combining the familiar structure of a TreeView with the convenience of a dropdown, the new Blazor DropDownTree component offers an intuitive, space‑efficient interface that makes browsing, expanding and selecting nested items effortless.

New Editor in Telerik UI for .NET MAUI

Gain a richer, more flexible text‑input experience designed for scenarios that go beyond a simple entry field. Offering a multiline editor with built‑in scrolling, the new MAUI Editor makes it easy for users to draft longer text, edit content and work comfortably within constrained mobile and desktop layouts.

New Speech-to-Text Button in Desktop Products

Already available in all Telerik and Kendo UI web and mobile libraries, the Speech-to-Text Button is now ready to empower desktop users, too. They can convert speech into text with a single click, making it easy to add voice input to forms, search bars, chat interfaces and other interactive scenarios.

Learn more:

• Telerik UI for WPF Speech-to-Text Button
• Telerik UI for WinForms Speech-to-Text Button

Feature Improvements Beyond AI

Additional DataGrid Enhancements

Alongside the new smart features, this release brings developer‑focused improvements to the traditional DataGrid experience.

Features like CSV export, stacked layout modes and column min/max width constraints in KendoReact give more control over how data is presented and consumed.

The customizable keyboard shortcuts and improved sorting performance make the Telerik UI for Blazor Grid feel faster and easier to tailor to complex scenarios. Data interaction with grouping‑sort behavior allows grouped data to be reordered directly from the UI.

Chat UI Improvements Across the Board

Users can now quickly jump to the most recent messages with a dedicated scroll-to-bottom button. Message delivery is also more transparent with improved status indicators that can display text, icons or both, along with a new failed message state that allows users to easily resend messages with a single click.

Suggestions have also been refined. Clicked items can optionally disappear from the list and can now be inserted into the input for editing before sending.

These enhancements are powered by a more capable input experience, supporting single-line, multiline and auto-expand modes, customizable prefix and suffix content, and built-in actions like speech-to-text and file selection, making the Chat control more flexible, modern and user-friendly.

All these features make the component equally well suited for AI-to-human interactions and traditional human-to-human conversations.

Diagram Interaction Enhancements

You can now add text directly to connections with flexible positioning options, display tooltips on nodes and connections, and benefit from larger grab points that make starting new connections more precise.

Interaction is smoother with resizable connection segments, improved snapping between shapes and connectors, and automatic scrollbars when the canvas exceeds the viewport.

Additional upgrades such as keyboard navigation and resizable shapes contribute to a more polished and accessible diagramming experience.

New in Kendo UI for Angular Spreadsheet, Scheduler and PDFViewer

Angular Scheduler gains more flexible calendar control with options to show or hide days, weekends and other non‑working periods, along with improved slot styling.

The Angular Spreadsheet now enables Excel‑like filtering, sorting with visual indicators and comprehensive copy/paste/cut event handling.

Meanwhile, the Angular PDFViewer introduces support for form filling and blank pages and reuses the modern Toolbar component.

Telerik Reporting and Report Server Updates

With this release, Telerik reporting tools include inline image support in HtmlTextBox, repeat‑on‑every‑page table group headers, improved .NET‑based serialization and full Unicode BiDi text handling for accurate multilingual rendering—all designed to boost performance, readability and global accessibility. Developers also gain access to the downloadable .NET reporting source code, making debugging, customization and exploration easier.

Core Document Processing Enhancements

New MIME type support for embedded files allows developers to explicitly define how attachments like XML, JSON or CSV payloads are represented inside PDFs, while automatic file‑format detection makes it easier to load documents from byte arrays. Compliance is further improved through EU DSS‑aligned digital signing, helping validate PDFs against official European Commission standards. Additionally, Timestamp Server support in PdfStreamSigner enables trusted, verifiable timestamps that support long‑term signature validity.

Modern Framework Support and Integrations

Angular v21 Adoption

Kendo UI for Angular is fully aligned with Angular v21, enabling seamless compatibility with the latest framework updates and giving developers immediate access to improved performance, modern APIs and long‑term platform stability.

.NET 11 Preview 1 Compatibility

Telerik UI libraries and tools are compatible with .NET 11 Preview 1, allowing early adopters to start experimenting with the latest .NET platform updates.

jQuery 4.0.0 Support

After almost a decade, jQuery 4.0.0 has arrived, removing legacy browser support, dropping deprecated APIs, aligning event behavior with modern standards and overall modernizing the codebase. Kendo UI for jQuery is fully compatible and ready for jQuery 4.

JustMock-GitLab integration

JustMock now integrates with GitLab CI/CD, enabling teams to run and automate JustMock‑based unit tests directly within their GitLab pipelines.

What’s New & Release History

To see everything that is new in 2026 Q1, visit the What’s New in Telerik and Kendo UI page. For a deeper dive into each product, follow the links below.

The Illusion of Being Data-Driven

Everyone claims to be “data-driven.” But a lot of software just dumps information. It displays data instead of directing action.

If your dashboard doesn’t make decisions easier, it’s not a driver, it’s a dumpsite.

I’ve worked on many dashboards. Ideas were never the problem. Our design team even joked about management’s dashboard obsession. Presenting and plotting endless data looked impressive until we asked the mood-killing question: “why?”

That’s when the illusion cracked. Asking “why?” moved us from information overload to software that drives insight and action.

Available ≠ Valuable

We measure everything because we can. Data is cheap, access is easy, storage feels endless.

But available doesn’t mean valuable. Information only gains worth when it changes how someone thinks or acts.

To create value, you need more than content. You need context. That’s what allows you to retrieve meaning from data and turn it into action.

A lot of that context still lives in people’s heads. With AI, we get the chance to surface more of that hidden context.

But there’s a catch: generative AI. If you’re not careful, you’re right back to square one. Just producing more information.

Making more data available ≠ making data valuable.

Information Inflation

Information inflation is the paradox of abundance: as supply rises, value falls. Each added chart, feed or KPI fights for the same slice of attention. Producing information gets cheaper; turning it into action gets expensive.

We spend more time finding and setting context. The burden grows when data isn’t delivered on demand but stockpiled “just in case.” The years of celebrating the mere existence of all this data are behind us. If we don’t shift toward measurable meaning, we’ll drown in the very data we collect.

Data-Fueled, Not Data-Driven

Data on its own is just fuel, not the driver. To actually drive, you need direction.

Direction comes from insight, and insight needs context. Without that, “data-driven” is just data-fueled.

How Data Becomes a Driver

In oil and gas operations, I once worked on a dashboard that had to help decide when to stop a drilling operation because of high risks.

The raw information was vibration data coming from the equipment. Instead of just plotting those vibrations on a graph and asking people to stare at it all day, we moved to indication. We set thresholds on the values and added a custom icon set that showed how far things were moving off target.

That meant operators could see at a glance when something entered the problem zone without watching charts nonstop.

The next step was moving to interpretation by adding context. Depending on the stage of the operation we were about to enter, the same vibration level could mean very different things. So we showed live data about location and stage alongside the indicators, so people could read the situation, not just the numbers.

From there, we got to insight: we flagged upcoming stages as “at risk” based on that pattern. And finally, we tied it to action by adding mitigation buttons. In our case, options to slow down, pause or adjust the operation before things went wrong. Same data, but transformed from raw information into a clear path to act.

You only drive when data travels through these five transformations:

Information → Indication → Interpretation → Insight → Action

Each step adds context and clarity. By the time you reach action, data has meaning. It actually helps you drive.

Design’s role is to make those transitions visible and usable.

• Design a system that doesn’t dump data on screen.
• Decide what’s meaningful before you start collecting.
• Don’t capture what you don’t need.
• Distribute data on demand.

Clarity Over Quantity

Dashboards fail when they stop at information. Great systems don’t dump information.

Available ≠ Valuable.
Information ≠ Action.

Design for meaning, not volume. Turn dashboards into tools that actually make people act.

The landscape of web design can change dramatically from year to year. Not just because of trendy UI styles or features either. The world is changing fast and, with it, our users. As a result, their needs, desires and preferences when interacting with brands evolves over the years.

To keep pace with everything going on, web designers need to seek out opportunities for education. Reading blogs and books, listening to podcasts and following thought leaders on social media can be helpful. In many cases, though, this kind of content only covers the tip of the iceberg.

For a more comprehensive education and update on what’s happening, industry conferences can be valuable resources.

Every conference is different in terms of theme, availability (in person and online), cost and content. If you’re interested in attending a conference or two this year, keep reading to learn more about what’s available.

7 Upcoming Conferences for Web Designers

One of the nice things about web design conferences is that they’re held throughout the year. Some of them even offer virtual attendance options (if they’re not fully virtual to begin with). So if you miss one, there’s always another one down the road you can attend.

Here’s what you can expect at the following conferences for designers:

Adobe MAX

Location:

• In-person: Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, FL
• Online

Dates:

• November 8-9, 2026 (Preconference)
• November 10-12, 2026 (Conference)
• November 10-11, 2026 (Online event)

What to expect:
Adobe MAX offers both an in-person and online annual event for designers, developers and creatives of all levels.

More than 150 sessions take place during this event. Sessions are broken up into different tracks, and include:

• 3D
• Branding
• Creativity and marketing for business
• Generative AI
• Graphic design
• Illustration
• Social media marketing
• Audio, motion and video

What’s nice about this conference is that each session will be assigned a technical level. This way, you can choose sessions that align with your interests and level of experience.

Now, if you plan to attend the in-person conference, you’ll have access to keynote speeches, Adobe Labs sneak peeks, 60-minute luminary sessions and creativity super sessions. After the conference, you’ll also be able to watch screen capture and audio recordings of any events you missed.

If you’d prefer to attend online, the programming is slightly different. Online Adobe Live Sessions will be 30 to 60 minutes and give you access to First Takes and Meet the Speaker sessions where you’ll learn more about Adobe products. Online presentations will only be available as replays and will last between 15 to 30 minutes.

Figma Config

Location:

• In-person: Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA
• Online

Dates:

• June 23-25, 2026

What to expect:
Figma Config is an annual conference for anyone involved in the development of products—designers, developers, marketers, product managers, etc. While some of the sessions revolve around Figma products and features, there are others that focus on the present and future of product design.

The sessions fall under the following themes:

• Strategy
• Process
• Craft
• Design systems

Although the schedule isn’t available yet, you’ll find highlights from 2025 Figma Conf from last year. These keynotes and sessions dig into topics like redesigning the computer mouse, collaborative brand design and creating interactive animations.

If you’re interested in watching the virtual conference, it’s free. You just won’t be able to watch the sessions in real time. The keynote sessions will go up on YouTube the day of and the breakout sessions will appear on YouTube once the conference is over.

FITC

Location:

• In-person: The Great Hall in Toronto, Canada
• Online

Dates:

• April 27-28, 2026

What to expect:
FITC stands for “Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity.” This two-day conference is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Similar to the other conferences on this list, there will be round table discussions and various session tracks to attend.

One of the biggest differences between this event and the others is its theme:

“This year, FITC Toronto explores the theme of rebirth. In a world moving too fast and overwhelmed by AI and shiny new tools, we want to pause, reflect, and bring back the concepts that inspired us as artists. We want to pay homage to our creative journey, appreciate the small foundational things we learned along the way, and celebrate the essence of our industry.”

If this is something that resonates with you, you have two ways of attending.

In-person attendees get full access to all of the presentations, can take part in the Q&A and are able to attend evening events. They’ll also get six months of online access to the main room sessions.

If you want to attend online and for a discounted rate, you’ll be able to do so in real time. You’ll also get six months’ access to the replays after the event.

SXSW Innovation Conference

Location:

• Austin

Dates:

• March 12-18, 2026

What to expect:
South by Southwest (SXSW) is known for many things. Not only is it the host of popular Music, Comedy and Film & TV Conferences, it concurrently runs an Innovation Conference in March of every year. This is the one you’ll want to pay the most attention to as a web designer.

The Innovation conference has a variety of tracks that may be right up your alley, like Brand & Marketing, Design and Tech & AI. You may also find some interesting content in these tracks:

• Creator Economy
• Startups
• Sports & Gaming
• Workplace
• Health

While AI is going to be talked about a bit, you’ll find other interesting subject matter covered at the conference, like “Meet Gen Alpha,” “10 Truths About Technology That Are Shaping Your Life” and “You Can’t Create Cultural Relevance Without Community.”

This conference is only available to attend in-person, but you do have options. You can buy a Platinum badge for access to all the conferences, one strictly for Innovation, or you can mix and match based on your interests.

UXDX

Location:

• In-person: New York or Berlin
• Online

Dates:

• May 11-13, 2026 (USA)
• May 27-29, 2026 (EMEA)

What to expect:
If you’re a UX designer or researcher, then UXDX may be a worthwhile conference to attend. Two conferences are held in May—one in the U.S. and one in Germany. While the content is similar, it’s not identical. So, be sure to check out the agendas for each conference to find the one that interests you most.

Another option is to attend the conferences online. You’ll pay a discounted rate, but only get access to 20 talks instead of the 30 scheduled.

Unlike some of the larger design conferences, there aren’t separate tracks. This conference is solely dedicated to helping product teams deliver better results. So, you’ll find sessions like the following:

• “Shipping Faster With React Server Components”
• “Are We Designing for Humans or for Agents?”
• “Engineering Seamless Journeys Across Physical and Digital Touchpoints”
• “Closing the Design–Engineering Gap (for Real)”
• “Building Inclusion Into Our Design System And Delivery Process”

The sessions might not be as flashy as other conferences, but they’re meant to be actionable and empowering for UX pros.

Web Summit

Location:

• Lisbon, Portugal

Dates:

• November 9-12, 2026

What to expect:
Information isn’t yet available for Web Summit’s 2026 conference. However, this is what we do know about this annual event:

There are 20 tracks to choose from, which include:

• AI Summit
• Commerce Summit
• Creative Summit
• Developer Summit
• Fintech Summit
• Marketing Summit
• SaaS Summit

There are a lot of sessions going on at the same time, so you’ll want to do some planning ahead of time to make sure you catch the sessions that are most important to you.

Also, don’t forget to look into the meetups available throughout the four-day summit. You’ll find them for all kinds of groups, like Robotics Geeks, Spanish CEOs, CleanTech, Women in Tech and Neurodiverse Folks. These are a great way to fill the gaps in your schedule (if you have any) while enjoying some networking.

World Usability Conference

Location:

• In-person: Graz, Austria

Dates:

• October 13-15, 2026

What to expect:
The World Usability Conference is an in-person-only event that takes place over three days in October. Attendees can choose to buy tickets for one day, for the conference or for the conference plus workshops. While there’s no online counterpart, attendees get access to the recordings after the event.

This conference is all about UX strategy and management. During the sessions and workshops, you’ll get a chance to learn about common challenges in UX research and design, and how experts are navigating their way around them.

Tracks include:

• Enterprise UX
• Future UX
• Human UX
• UX Strategy
• Accessibility & Inclusion
• UX Research
• UX Management
• Leadership
• AI & UX

If you plan on buying a one-day pass, make sure to look up which tracks are available on each day. The conference organizers do a good job placing related topics together so that you can realistically get the information most relevant to you and your role in a single day.

Wrapping Up

One of the nice things about having so many conferences to choose from is that you can pick and choose the ones that are best for you.

Do you want to attend online, watch the replay or join in person?

Do you want to go for one day or the whole thing?

Are you interested in the talks or would you find it beneficial to attend the workshops, networking events and other programming?

Also, with most of these conferences planned well in advance, most of them offer special discounted rates for early birds. So, once you decide which ones you want to attend, there are budget-friendly ticket options available.

At the end of the day, there’s something for everyone. It’s just a matter of finding one with the program that interests you most, that fits your budget and that works with your schedule.

Teams are often obsessed with the final result.

But progress isn’t only found in the finish—it happens in the steps between. When we visualize those steps, the incomplete design becomes a powerful tool.

The Illusion of Completeness

When something is complete, it looks done. It suggests certainty. It feels like quality.

But in product development, “final” is an illusion. Just because the tasks are done doesn’t automatically mean the product is good. Dragging tickets to the next column can feel like progress but might hide a serious flaw.

I was building a small LEGO digger with my daughter the other day. It was interesting to see how she was more focused on following the steps correctly than fast-forwarding to a functioning digger.

The instructions were detailed. We used the mobile app with 3D models and animations. You trust the makers that every step is there for a reason. Together with IKEA furniture, it’s one of the few manuals I actually read—and for good reason.

There’s no room for guessing. It’s designed to be assembled in a certain way. Every step is illustrated clearly, and once in a while you get a little overview of your progress.

It’s simplified with micro-success. It’s continuous completeness. The final result is the reward.

The Missing Middle

Most teams describe what should happen at the start and verify what happened at the end. But the middle? It’s often hidden.

The result is rework, misalignment and late feedback.

The solution isn’t more documentation—it’s more visibility.

Wireframes, low-fidelity mocks or prototypes can be reverse-designed. From the current state to the desired state, you can show the progression.

Take a common case: An admin console where you manage access entitlements. The current version has a simple form: email, roles, save.

Now the team wants to expand its features:

• Users can get access by adding them to a group (dropdown)
• And generate an access control report for documentation (button)

All those additions lead to a new “final” state.

But each feature introduces its own interface and backend changes. To design this well, you can accompany each user story with a lightweight wireframe or diagram showing how the interface or system evolves—from the simple form to the new version.

This illustration is very basic. So, yes, it might feel like overkill. But all I did was copy the end state and hide the report button.

That might look trivial, but I’ve seen in real projects that this kind of visibility works. It removes unnecessary guessing. It’s childproof—like LEGO.

And it doesn’t take a lot of time to produce—just hiding a few elements and sharing them.

The result is clarity about progress.

Closure

Progress isn’t all about the finish. It’s made in the steps between.

When you visualize those steps intentionally, you don’t just show progress—you design for it.

Don’t just design the result. Design the progress.

The Alarming Truth

When systems become complex, safety becomes a challenge. Alarms are the guardrails that help prevent disaster from striking. Yet poorly designed software creates an alarming reality.

Disasters rarely happen because of a lack of alarms. They happen because there are too many.

In control rooms, alarms are everywhere. And maybe that’s the problem. Alarms fire so often that users stop noticing them. They mute the sound just to make it through the shift. And when they do notice an alarm, it’s often nonessential or even a false positive.

When everything seems urgent, nothing is. When alarms fire constantly, people stop responding.

We like to think having alarms equal safety. We overestimate. Mistrust. And bad alarm design leads to fatigue, overload and inactivity.

Designing alarms means designing for the human in the loop. Because when the alarm goes off, it’s not the sensor that solves the problem. It’s the responsible person inside the system.

Classification Clarity

If you want alarms people can trust, you need alarms people can understand. That starts with clear, consistent alarm classification.

An alarm is not just awareness. It’s a signal that something needs attention.

But systems are becoming more complex. Staff is reduced. Workload increased. This cognitive context demands crystal-clear communication. Alarms with the right priority, and the expected reliability.

You need a common classification system across your platform—one that spans code, UI, processes and people.

That means aligning on two key dimensions: priority and reliability.

Priority

Priority tells you what to focus on—what truly requires your attention.
It reflects a combination of urgency × severity.

• Urgency is how much time you have. Do you act now, or do you have a buffer?
• Severity is the consequence. What happens if you miss this?

Reliability

Reliability tells you whether the alarm can be trusted. It depends on two factors: probability × accuracy.

• Probability is about trusting the event. Is this likely to happen?
• Accuracy is about trusting the source. Is the data reliable?

Consistent classification creates clarity.

I have seen systems used by the same operator. One used low, medium, high priority with green, yellow and red color-coding. Another used lo-lo, lo, mid, hi, hi-hi. A third used normal, critical and urgent. This kind of inconsistency makes it difficult for operators to judge.

But labeling an alarm is just the start. The real challenge is what happens next. What is the next step in the alarm lifecycle?

The Alarm Lifecycle

Alarms are not just event messages. They’re part of a loop. You want users to respond. To resolve an issue or prevent a disaster.

That’s the job of the alarm lifecycle: a continuous system that helps teams manage risk.

I use a simple model to describe this: the alarm lifecycle triangle

Manage → Monitor → Event → Trigger → Notify → Respond → Manage

When you design a system, you’re facilitating this lifecycle with user interfaces. You can leverage existing UI components to design each step with a greater experience.

Manage

This is your start and end. Before an alarm ever fires, someone has to define it. What triggers it? Who owns it? How should it escalate?

You need alarms in an overview, a list or a dashboard. A place where teams configure, control and store alarms.

Common components:
Datagrid, listview, card, form.

Monitor

This is the activity between Manage and Event. Monitoring means watching the data, the patterns, the signals. Until something happens, you’re anticipating what might happen.

Common components:
Chart, timeline, gauge, listview.

Event

This is the moment of truth. A condition is met. A rule is broken. Or a system forecasts that something will occur.

You can see these events unfold through visuals. Noticing anomalies, spikes or drop-offs in the data.

Common components:
Chart, gauge, diagram.

Trigger

This is where logic turns into action. The system makes a decision: raise the alarm.

Triggers need to be clearly defined. Not just what happened, but what matters enough to notify. Good trigger design avoids false positives and misplaced thresholds.

Common components:
Popup, badge, conditionally styled rows.

Notify

This is the handoff. The alarm moves from system to user.

But how? To whom? Through what channel? That’s where UX matters most. Alarms must reach the right person, with the right context, at the right time.

Common components:
Alert, badge, toast, modal, notification panel, chatbot.

Respond

This is the moment of action. The user sees the alarm. Now what? Acknowledge. Escalate. Or Fix? Maybe even dismiss or snooze it.

You’re not just designing for reaction. You’re designing for decision.

Common components:
Button, dropdown, chip.

Alarm, Alert or Action?

A common misconception is that alarms and alerts are the same. But alerts are just one type of notification—used by alarms.

An alert tells you something happened. An alarm tells you to do something about it. That action is what actually matters.

Too many systems stop at notifying. They fire off popups and badges and call it a day. But if you want real safety, you need to go further.

You need to design for different types of response:

• Passive – “I saw it.”
• Reactive – “I’ll act now.”
• Proactive – “I’ll prevent it.”

If you want people to act, you have to design for it—with proper classification and a well-managed lifecycle.

From out of control, to in control.

Tabs have been around for decades and I haven’t seen complex enterprise software that doesn’t use them.

In all my years designing enterprise apps, two components have proven to be either the strongest asset or the weakest link: tables and tabs.

I already wrote about tables in my post on why you can’t beat the spreadsheet. Now it’s time to take a look at tabs.

The Friendly Developer’s Shortcut

If you’ve ever built enterprise software, you know that tabs are the default. They’re easy to implement. Nest items in code, separate them in the UI. Simple.

Back in the day, developers were also the designers. Tabs were the easiest way to bring order to complex screens. They stuck because they worked.

Also, much of software design simply mimicked the operating system. It’s no surprise enterprise apps followed Microsoft’s example.

Think of the old Windows settings dialog: a tiny screen packed with tabs.

That pattern became the blueprint for squeezing dozens of options into limited space.

Making use of every pixel was considered an achievement. Mobile-first design? Not even a thing.

The Untabbed Truth

The truth is, you’ll use tabs at some point. They’re too common to ignore. They turbocharge the experience, used well. But there are pros and cons to using them.

Navigation

• Pro: Easy to scan and move between categories
• Con: Too many tabs make scanning hard and moving slow

Disclosure

• Pro: Good for hiding lots of options
• Con: Important info or actions can get lost

Structure

• Pro: Clear structure and focus when used well
• Con: Nested tabs multiply confusion

Switching Tabs: Alternatives

Tabs aren’t the only way to organize complexity. Sometimes other components do the job better.

Accordions

• Pro: Great for progressive disclosure—show one thing at a time
• Con: Expand too many and you’re back to scrolling forever

Panels

• Pro: Easy to read, even with many items
• Con: Take more screen space and clutter the screen fast

Steppers

• Pro: Perfect when groups are steps in a process
• Con: Breaks down if users need to jump around or skip steps

Developer-Friendly, User-Centered

Tabs still have a place. They’re familiar and fast to build and can structure complexity. But they can also turn into a bottleneck—for both users and developers.

User Experience

• Pro: Clear structure and focus when used well
• Con: Hidden content or clumsy navigation slows everyone down

Development

• Pro: Quick to implement, easy to drop in
• Con: Custom solutions require more work to handle states and navigation

Code

• Pro: UI toolkits like Progress Kendo UI libraries give you accessible, tested tab components out of the box
• Con: Writing custom code adds complexity and risks breaking essentials like accessibility

Instead of reinventing tabs, lean on a toolkit that handles the heavy lifting. If you need an alternative, the toolkit makes it easy to switch. That way you can focus on the one thing that matters most: delivering a great user experience.

So tabs are definitely not a taboo—just handle them with care. Use them well, and with a toolkit like Kendo UI, you’re turbocharged.

The Kendo UI component libraries come with a free trial. Give them a shot today!

Try Now

Many people prefer not to pick up the phone to call a vendor or company these days. Instead, they opt for digital modes of communication like email, SMS and contact forms.

There’s not a whole lot you can do to control the experience a user has while emailing or texting your company. But you do have control over the contact form experience.

In this post, we’ll look at four things you can do to create a contact form that encourages users to fill it out in full and get in touch.

Best Practices for Contact Form Design

Depending on your business model or niche, your contact form may be basic, asking visitors for their name and contact info and giving them space to comment or leave a question. For others, the contact form may ask more specific questions about who the visitor is and their reasons for reaching out.

Contact forms are an essential tool in lead generation. But if your forms are failing to connect you with visitors, then something needs to change.

Let’s look at some best practices for designing and adding contact forms to your website:

1. Create an Intuitive Layout

Regardless of how basic or complex your contact form is, visitors should be able to take one look at it and think, “This is easy enough.”

To start, clearly label each field. Also, make the size of the fields commensurate with how much information you’re asking for (or that some visitors may want to give). For instance, the “Message” or “Comments” field should never be a small field. A larger field encourages visitors to provide detail that may be helpful when you get back to them.

These two steps will allow them to eyeball the form and get a sense for how complicated or time-consuming it’s going to be to fill out.

Another thing you can do to improve the usability of the form is to line up all the fields vertically.

Our eyes naturally follow an F-shaped pattern when scanning pages and content. Although our eyes might go from margin to margin at the top of a section, we mostly focus on what we see along the left margin.

By designing your form fields all in one column, visitors won’t miss fields that appear on the same line with others.

Here is an example of how this should look, from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston website:

Now, a single-line contact form might make it appear longer. However, there are ways to address this if you’re concerned the length will turn visitors off.

For example, you could organize your form into sections. If there are clear ways to group the questions—like contact questions, demographic info, needs/preferences, etc.—this is a good option. You could even design your form with collapsible accordions so that your visitors only see the section they’re working on. We see this a lot in ecommerce checkout forms.

Another option is to create a multi-step form. It’s a similar concept as grouping. However, you’ll pull the groups of questions out into separate screens and steps.

The only thing to be careful of with this type of form is including too many steps and not showing the user’s progress. With a grouped accordion form, they can at least peek ahead. With the multistep form, they can’t. So, minimize steps and provide assurances with a progress bar when possible.

2. Gather the Info You Need

One of the ways to keep your contact form length reasonable is by only asking for the information you need.

A shorter form makes the act of filling out the form more appealing, especially if someone is on the fence about reaching out. Also, creating concise forms means leaving out questions that might lead visitors to wonder why you need that information. If there’s no need to pry for those details, then leave it out.

At the same time, you want to ensure that you’re asking for enough information. While basic contact forms (e.g., Name, Email, Message) may work in some cases, they don’t work for all of them.

For example, this is the contact form on the Landmark Theatres website:

This form includes the following fields:

• Location
• Name
• Email
• Phone Number
• Message

The Location dropdown field will be helpful for directing the query to the correct theater. However, the form is perhaps a little too basic for this website.

Think about the kinds of things people might reach out about:

• Requesting a ticket refund
• Reporting an incident
• Asking about reserving a theater
• Reporting technical issues with the site or mobile app
• Asking about open jobs

Depending on how many people actually use this contact form, managing the responses could end up being a huge job for a team.

Firstly, if the form isn’t automated, they’d need to forward the response to the appropriate manager at the location. Then, they’d have to read through the message to determine what they need. Finally, they’d need to forward it to the appropriate person if they’re not able to manage the request or question on their own.

While we never want to burden visitors by asking for too much information, asking more questions in the contact form could help everyone’s experience in the end. You’d just have to design it so the form doesn’t feel cumbersome or intrusive.

For example, you could include non-required fields that ask about their reason for reaching out. You could then redirect the form to the appropriate team member or display additional fields using conditional logic to gather more relevant details.

It’s a balancing act. You want your contact form to appear friendly and unintimidating. At the same time, you don’t want it to be too basic or to provide too little direction.

3. Reduce the Likelihood of Errors

The initial impressions of your contact form will help people get started with it. To encourage them to complete it, it needs to be easy to fill out.

Errors, in particular, can make form filling an annoying process. When configuring your form, though, there are certain safeguards that’ll reduce the likelihood of your visitors encountering errors along the way.

The first thing to do is add clear labels to each field—and outside of the fields, too. This way, visitors can see at all times what info is required.

You might also want to consider adding helper text to some fields.

For example, in the Email field, you could add helper text inside or below the field that reads xyz@email.com. The Phone and URL/Website fields are others that would benefit from showing users what format you want the response to be in.

Reducing the amount of text that needs to be written out can be helpful as well. For instance, instead of giving an open-ended field for State or Country, give users dropdown options to choose from.

Also, clearly marking which fields are required will help more users get through a form on the first go-round.

Now, errors may happen regardless of the help or hints you give your visitors along the way. To help them successfully send their message through, real-time error indicators and messages should be present.

Let’s take a look at how Mendix handles this:

As the visitor tabs through each field, they turn green or red after the interaction.

Green signifies that something has been entered into a required field and that it was correctly done based on the parameters.

Red signifies that a required field was left empty or that the entry was incorrect.

This is a good start, but it’s not enough. The colors alone can’t signal to everyone that something is right or wrong as some people can’t distinguish between the colors.

What’s more, no detail is given after they enter something incorrectly. It’s only when the visitor returns to the red field and clicks on it that they see the reason for the error. For instance, I didn’t enter an email address into the Email field. This is the message I saw later:

Must be valid email. example@yourdomain.com

Ideally, this error would appear immediately after filling in the field or tabbing to the next one. Waiting until the visitor hits “Send” or revisits the error-marked field is too late.

4. Make the Form Accessible

A lot of the points I’ve made already tie into this idea that forms must be accessible. For example, using color alone (especially red or green) to signal an error could make your form difficult and frustrating to use for some users.

There are other things to keep in mind when designing your form for accessibility. Let’s look at the contact form on the website for the Perkins School for the Blind for our example.

This form is nicely done. For starters, it’s keyboard accessible, so users can tab through the fields. This includes the dropdown at the top, the two checkboxes at the bottom, as well as the links for Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

From an initial usability standpoint, it looks and works well:

• The fields and the button at the bottom are large enough to prevent click errors.
• Each field has a clear border that strongly contrasts against the background of the form.
• Labels appear above and outside of each field.
• Supplemental information is included below fields as needed (e.g., Phone number ex: ###-###-####).
• Required fields are marked as such.
• Selected fields have a prominent focus around them.

The only problem is that it’s not set up for error handling very well. In this example, I intentionally left two required fields blank. The form does not inform me of these errors until I submit it.

The first thing that happens (which you can’t see in the video) is that a popup appears at the top of the screen. It reads:

The form is not complete and has not been submitted yet. There are 2 problems with your submission.

After the popup disappears, I’m able to see the errors marked in bold red font below each field. The good news is that the errors appear within context, so visitors won’t have to play a guessing game and try to figure out what they did wrong. In an ideal situation, though, these messages would appear while filling out the form.

For users with impairments, disabilities or who are in limiting situations, filling out a form the first time may be challenging enough. Asking them to do it a second time could make them decide not to go through with it. Or to do it anyway, but they’ll feel pretty negatively toward the brand as they do it (even if they weren’t that frustrated or angry before).

Either way, a poor error handling experience can hurt your brand in the end. That’s why it’s critical to pay attention to these kinds of details when you’re making the rest of the experience accessible.

Wrapping Up

There are many ways in which people can get in touch with brands these days. Email. SMS. Social media. Third-party listings or pages. And, of course, the contact form on your website or app.

If you want to encourage as many visitors as possible to complete your form, then it needs to look good, work well and collect only what’s needed from the user. The guidelines above will give you some ways to do this along with some common mistakes to avoid in the process.

You don’t get credit for building everything yourself, but you do get punished when your software fails. So why are you still building the generic parts? Why do we fall for the trap of thinking we know it better?

Building software isn’t about the mechanics—it’s about the market. If you spend time coding and never ship the thing that actually sells, you lose.

If you want to build the right software, you need to stop building generic software. You need to start building the kind that delivers value. That means: You need to maximize work not done.

Maximize Work Not Done

Maximize work not done is a key Agile principle. But in my early career, I struggled with it. Especially as a designer, it felt like a creative constraint. I brought new ideas and bold concepts.

The principle felt like a rejection. A refusal of change. So, I fought it. I tried to out-argue it with better ideas. But, like many things in life, you grow. You gain experience. And eventually, you see what matters.

I learned that less really is more. The real skill is in reducing scope. When speed and quality are nonnegotiable, scope is your only lever. You can’t always change budget or time. But you can choose what not to do.

Maximizing work not done isn’t about lack of ambition. It’s about clarity. You focus on what really matters—your domain-specific edge. The secure data pipelines. The patented algorithms. The features that make your software yours—not just software.

Delayed Gratification

As a father, I have to say no all the time. I try to do it through important life skills—like delayed gratification.

If my kids can resist the urge for an instant reward, they gain self-control. They learn to wait, to think, and to choose the path that pays off in the long run. It’s not easy—but it’s worth it.

Software teams need that same skill.

There are always exciting ideas, shiny objects and hyped-up trends. But not everything needs to be solved right now. Some problems are better parked. Some ideas need more investigation. And some features? They should never be built at all.

We need to get better at saying “not now.” Because when you build now, you’re not just spending effort—you’re spending future capacity. You’re creating something that has to be supported, maintained, debugged—and eventually replaced.

Instead, focus your energy where it pays off long-term:

• Solving real industry problems.
• Improving outcomes for users.
• Making choices that may not feel exciting now, but create lasting value.

Not Again

Everything you build yourself, you have to maintain. I learned that the hard way.

For one product, we went through three—maybe four—rounds of charting implementations. Every time, we thought it would be better. More powerful. More tailored. And every time, we ended up over-customizing.

It cost us. Extra effort. Bug fixing. Upgrade issues. Technical debt.

Bottom line: We spent way too many resources building something generic.

It wasn’t domain-specific. It didn’t make our product meaningfully better. And it definitely didn’t win us more deals.

These are the features that make you think: Not again. Not again a feature that belongs in a toolkit. Not again budget wasted on generic software. Not again delaying time to market for a “better idea.”

Yes, you need high-quality software from the start. But you don’t need to build it all yourself. Buy the generic. Build the difference.

Build What Only You Can

Build what’s domain-specific. What makes your product yours.

That’s why toolkits exist. That’s why Progress exists. They help you ship the generic stuff fast—login screens, tables, filters, inputs, charts.

Accept that off-the-shelf solutions have limits. But they help you get to market faster. You’ll learn and earn faster—which enables your competitive edge. Use proven systems and toolkits that have already solved the boring stuff. Then spend your energy on what matters most to your users.

Stop trying to built what already exists. Start building what sets you apart.

Say ‘No’ More

Saying no isn’t always easy. But it’s a skill you need to build great software.

Say no more often: To scope creep. To building what’s already been built. To shiny objects that don’t serve your users.

Knowing what not to do is what keeps teams focused—and fast.

Say “no” more. Maximize work not done.

Learn how Progress can help you get started: Check out the Telerik DevCraft toolkit. It comes with a 30-day free trial.

Last year, we started really exploring the designer-developer relationship: from design systems, brainstorming, prototyping and user testing through the handoff, creation and launch process. Where are things working well? Why do we hit blockers? And why can’t developers understand the difference between cobalt and cerulean? (Just kidding about that last one … mostly).

We hit the streets conferences with a whiteboard and a ton of sticky notes and talked to hundreds of designers and developers in-person about their experiences.

Then, we broadened the scope and launched The State of Designer Developer Collaboration Survey, so we could hear from designers and developers all around the world! What we found was super interesting—but no spoilers: Go check out the results and see for yourself!

Now, a year has passed—and what an eventful year it’s been! The growth of generative AI has disrupted our workflows and processes in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Last year, we had a token few questions about AI, and many of our respondents were feeling hesitant about incorporating it into their work. This year, we’ve expanded to a whole section on AI—and I suspect that the responses will be quite different!

There’s only one way to find out for sure, though. Take The State of Designer-Developer Collaboration 2025 Survey: Workflows, Trends and AI.

We want to hear from you! Have things changed in your day-to-day work? Are you a designer who’s vibe-coding more interactive prototypes? A developer who’s asking ChatGPT for color scheme ideas? Have you been over- or underwhelmed by all the new AI features popping up in your tools? Or maybe nothing has changed for you, and you’re still keeping a cautious eye on this whole “AI” thing before diving in?

No matter what you’re experience is, we’re curious to hear about it. We’ll bundle up all the results into a meticulously detailed and (of course) beautifully designed report, and you’ll be the first to know.

Take The Survey

In June 2025, Apple announced Liquid Glass. This new glassmorphic digital material has changed the way components look and feel on all its operating systems and devices.

Because of how drastically the Apple UI has changed, is it reasonable to expect that designers and developers will have to start mirroring their app and website designs to fit? And if they do, will these adaptations be minor or will it transform the way the entire web looks in the coming years?

In this post, we’re going to look at the new Liquid Glass UI and the changes it’s bringing to Apple’s operating systems. We’re also going to look at the similarities between Liquid Glass and Google’s original Material Design concept, and what this means for anyone designing digital interfaces in the near future.

What Is Apple’s Liquid Glass UI?

On June 6, 2025, Apple announced the new Liquid Glass software design.

Alan Dye, the VP of Human Design for Apple, says that goal of Liquid Design is to:

“Make something purely digital feel natural and alive—from how it looks to how it feels as it dynamically responds to touch.”

In the promotional video released with the announcement, we get to see what Liquid Glass looks like and what makes it different from previous Apple interfaces:

Let’s have a look at these changes in more detail:

Universal Design for All Platforms

It’s not just macOS or iOS that’s getting this Liquid Glass UI. All platforms have been redesigned with this new material. This includes:

• macOS
• iPadOS
• iOS
• watchOS
• tvOS

In addition, Apple apps have been reskinned with Liquid Glass elements, like Safari, Camera, Apple Music and more.

Essentially, everything went from looking like this:

Here we see how flat and ultra-minimalist something like a toolbar looked prior to Liquid Glass. The toolbar gives off the appearance that it’s part of the phone’s hardware instead of part of the screen or software.

The icons looked touchable simply because of their illustrated appearance and because they were confined to a toolbar container, not because they looked like buttons or stuck out in any other way from the interface.

Fast forward to June 2025, and here is how this toolbar now looks:

The icon designs are the same. However, the toolbar no longer appears to be part of the hardware. Nor is it separated from the content area and contained within a thick opaque space. Now, it sits within a semi-transparent component that hovers over the content.

This component (and all Liquid Glass components) also has rounded edges. This is something that Apple was intentional about when coming up with Liquid Glass as they wanted these hovering components to naturally nest within the rounded edges of Apple’s devices.

Reskinning of the Fundamental Elements

Unlike some design trends or brand redesigns that reenvision how every part of the UI looks, Liquid Glass only affects the fundamental elements. As Apple explains to developers and designers wanting to adopt it for their own purposes:

“Liquid Glass seeks to bring attention to the underlying content, and overusing this material in multiple custom controls can provide a subpar user experience by distracting from that content. Limit these effects to the most important functional elements in your app.”

So, which parts of the UI have changed exactly?

If we’re talking about Apple’s operating systems specifically, then Liquid Glass has transformed quite a bit of it.

On the lock screen, for instance, these elements are Liquid Glass:

• Date and time
• Notification bars
• Audio/video controllers

The home screen is majorly transformed as well. For example, these elements are now skinned using Liquid Glass:

• App icons
• Calendars
• Weather tracker
• Docks
• Sidebars
• Search bars
• Cards
• Navigation/screen slide controls

Here’s what the home screen of an iPhone looks like with Liquid Glass components:

Unlike previously where the background graphic or design would’ve been masked by all the icons, Liquid Glass allows us to see through them. So the content is no longer hidden by the components that sit atop it.

Now, here’s what a larger screen might look like if someone were to search for something to watch on a streaming service:

This has a much different appearance than the iPhone example above. In part, because the background is darker. But also because the Liquid Glass components don’t appear as see-through. (I’ll talk about that in the next section.)

These are just examples of how the Apple operating systems have changed. But their apps look different too.

For example, here’s what the controls look like when watching a movie or video in one of Apple’s apps:

You can see that the content is untouched. However, all the controls and settings in the layered foreground now have the distinctive Liquid Glass frosted look. These include:

• “X” exit button
• Screen sharing options
• Volume control
• Video player controls
• Closed captioning controls
• Video timeline bar
• Info buttons

Essentially, buttons, toolbars, sidebars, navigation and controls will now take on the look of Liquid Glass.

Translucent and Fluid Layers

Liquid Glass was designed to be a digital material that looks and acts like glass does in our physical world. So, these components are translucent and also refract light. If you watch the video above, you’ll see how moving an iPhone back and forth makes it look as though light is shining on the “glass” of the time displayed there.

Now, Liquid Glass can’t be completely transparent as it would create a readability and accessibility nightmare for Apple users. So, these elements have more of a soft glazed or foggy glass appearance than anything.

Refraction, however, does work a lot like it does in the real world. For example, here’s what the address bar and other navigational components might look like on an iPhone:

There are pink flowers in the center of the background. On top of this section is where you’ll find the address bar. You can see how pieces of the flower (the yellow and pink) still poke through.

That said, refraction doesn’t work equally the same way for all components.

For smaller, less intrusive elements like the address bar, it does. For larger elements that cover more of the content, it does not.

Here we see how clicking open a menu of controls gives us a more frosted Liquid Glass layer. Yes, we can still see some of the content and colors beneath it, but not as much as we do with smaller layers.

Without this extra-frosted effect, it would be very difficult to read the image editing settings in this menu.

We can’t forget that Liquid Glass is called “liquid” for a reason. This is something that we didn’t see much of in the above video (which is where these image stills come from), but it’s an important part of the new Apple user experience.

In terms of how this plays out, there are a couple of new effects to be aware of. One is the illumination effect. When touched or clicked, Liquid Glass components glow. Depending on the flexibility of the component, it may also flow beneath your finger or cursor if you move it.

The video quality here isn’t the best, but you’ll get a good sense for how this fluidity “feels” around the 4-minute mark.

Intuitive Adaptions

Something else that makes Liquid Glass different from what we’ve seen before is how it adapts to the environment as well as to user interaction.

To start, Liquid Glass components change color based on what’s behind them. We saw the example earlier of the pink flower behind the address bar. In the following example, we see how the blog interaction toolbar and back button change color as a user scrolls down this blog post.

The frosted glass starts out red at the top of the page:

As the user scrolls over the main content where the white background is, the Liquid Glass color changes to match it:

It’s not merely changing the background of the “glass” layer though. Liquid Glass will alter the color of the icons or text, too. For example, when these components pass over a darker section, the glass goes black while the icons turn white:

Ultimately, the color of your glass adapts to whatever content is behind it.

The shadow behind the glass will change, too. What we’ve seen so far is what happens when images and sold color blocks appear beneath Liquid Glass layers. However, if large swaths of text happen to show up behind them, then a shadow will appear to keep the text or icons on the Liquid Glass layers readable.

Another way in which Liquid Glass has been designed to adapt has to do with its size.

Liquid Glass is meant to have a minimal footprint. For starters, Apple has taken these components out of the content areas of the screen and layered them on top. By making them translucent, they feel lighter and less cumbersome, too.

But not every component is going to be small or stay small. For example, this is a search bar for Apple Maps:

It sits at the bottom of the phone screen, allowing the user to focus on the map. When clicked, though, it doesn’t just enable you to type a query into the field.

Instead, it opens up a panel with helpful search options.

This panel will disappear and shrink down to the minimal search bar if the user engages with the map outside of it. The same thing will happen with other small components that expand. The second a user disengages, scrolls, clicks away, etc., the Liquid Glass component shrinks down to its minimum size.

At the same time, the opacity of components changes based on their size. So, when you’re seeing the smaller version of them, they’ll be more translucent. When the larger menus or additional options appear, the component will take on a more opaque appearance. This is to improve readability as well.

Comparing Liquid Glass to Material Design

For those who don’t remember, Material Design was Google’s design system and UI framework that went mainstream in 2014.

As Ina Tontcheva explained:

“The team chose to use a metaphor of paper surface as the unifying principle because people have a long history of interacting with paper and surface and because they are physical and exist in the world. The team relied on the tangible metaphor that users understand intuitively to accelerate the understanding of their UI.”

At the time, Material Design was a breath of fresh air. It offered a much-needed shift away from skeuomorphism and the flat design trend that followed it.

The thing is, it didn’t just change the appearance of all of Google’s products, it went on to become the hottest design trend. It altered the face of the web for a couple of years—but not entirely for good. Many websites and apps looked and felt the same because they’d all followed Google’s specific guidelines (and even color palettes).

This era of design made it difficult to stand out visually. It also had its flaws when it came to usability and accessibility.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I suspect we’re about to see something similar happen with Liquid Glass.

There are some key differences, though, that may keep Liquid Glass and the glassmorphism trend as a whole from taking over the web. Or even from sticking around too long within the Apple ecosystem.

Google’s Reach

Right now, Liquid Glass is strictly for Apple devices and apps. Google’s Material Design, on the other hand, was for all Google products, which could be accessed on any device. (Not to mention the sheer popularity of Google Chrome and Search.)

So, unless Android, Google and other operating systems decide to follow suit, we may only see this trend within the Apple ecosystem.

That brings up an important question: Will these other tech giants make the move to a frosted glassy effect as well? What’s in it for them if they do? And how long will it take before they’re all in sync with this glassmorphism trend?

UI vs. Functionality

Material Design completely changed everything within the UI—the colors, fonts, components, backgrounds, layering and shading, animation, etc. Liquid Glass, on the other hand, is only concerned with functional components.

Because of this, Liquid Glass might not be something that designers and developers decide to adopt for their websites and apps.

Glassmorphism isn’t the kind of look that melds well with a lot of brands visually speaking. It’s a tricky medium as its glossiness and futuristic feel doesn’t work for many brands. Material Design had its limitations, too, but it didn’t have as exclusive of a feel to it. Plenty of brands were willing to play with the vibrant color palettes and paper-like layers.

If Liquid Glass were transforming the entire interface, some brands might be able to make that transition. But if we’re just talking layered components, most won’t be able to make that switch seamlessly.

Practicality

While Material Design may have been groundbreaking compared to the design trends we had before it, it still felt grounded. Basing the redesign on paper helped with this. It’s a simple and practical medium.

On the other hand, Liquid Glass reminds me of the kinds of things you see in sci-fi movies like Minority Report.

I think Apple was thinking many years ahead when it decided on glass as its medium. Right now, our hardware is still too solid and clunky to blend with glassmorphic UIs. Perhaps in three, four or maybe 10 years from now our devices will resemble those of Minority Report. But, for now, Liquid Glass doesn’t feel natural.

So, unless our tech catches up, I’m not sure it’ll have staying power.

Will Liquid Glass Be the Next Big Trend?

Apple has gone all in on Liquid Glass, changing the look and feel of all its products and proprietary apps.

Do I think we’ll see widespread adoption of it across the web? Not likely.

The one thing that may change this trajectory is what developers and designers do with it.

Let’s say that developers and designers feel pressured to add glassmorphic components to their apps for their Apple users. Without a Liquid Glass app icon or in-app components, the experience might not feel as seamless anymore.

But unless those developers and designers are working for a major enterprise with massive resources and budgets, can they afford to create a Liquid Glass-inspired experience for Apple users and a completely different one for everyone else? What’s more, do they want to have such a huge disparity between the user experience for these user segments?

We’ll have to see how things go with Liquid Glass in the next year or two. If popularity wanes, if it causes massive problems for accessibility (which there are rumblings of) or if Apple decides to revert back to the old design, then things will stay as they are. However, if Liquid Glass succeeds and wins the support from the huge user base that is Apple users, then non-Apple operating systems and devices will have to go all in on glassmorphism.