Deepwork. A tool that helps designers turn messy problems into clear design directions.
Most design work goes wrong before the first pixel, in the twenty minutes nobody spends understanding the problem. This is a place to spend them.
Got a real assignment? Paste your own brief
No account needed. Everything stays on this device.
The six steps
One brief, worked the way a good designer would work it.
Each step asks one question and holds you there until you have answered it. You cannot skip ahead to the interface.
01
Understand
Separate what the brief actually tells you from what you have quietly assumed, and admit what you don't know.
02
Investigate
Write the questions you would ask a stakeholder. Ask a good one and the brief gives up something it was holding back.
03
Frame
Commit to a single sentence describing the problem, before you are allowed to propose anything.
04
Explore
Three approaches that differ in kind, not in wording, each with the thing it optimises for and the risk it carries.
05
Decide
Choose one, name what you are giving up, and write down the evidence that would change your mind.
06
Review
A transcript of your reasoning with the time you spent on each step, so you can see where you rushed.
How it works
The brief does not tell you everything, on purpose.
Information is hidden until you ask for it
Every brief holds back things a real stakeholder would only tell you if you asked. Ask the right question and you get the answer. Guess, and you design on top of the gap.
The briefs are generated, not a library of twelve
Industries, products, roles and problems are combined and then checked for believability, so a Security Analyst never ends up running a warehouse. Difficulty changes how much you are told and how much pulls against you.
Frameworks stay out of the way until you are stuck
Every step has a method behind it, collapsed by default. Reaching for a framework before you have tried to think is the habit this is built to interrupt.
It works offline, and your writing stays on your device
No account, no server, nothing uploaded. Sessions survive refreshes and closed tabs, and you can export everything as JSON whenever you like.
Twenty minutes. One brief. No pixels.
Start with today's brief, or paste a real assignment you were given.