Michael Verdi
Vomit drafts made easy
I like to write but I often struggle to get my ideas down without editing and re-editing every sentence as I go, so I built a web app that doesn't break your flow with spellchecking, autocomplete or any other distraction.
My Roll
- I defined the product requirements.
- I designed the writing UI and interaction.
- I deleted or blocked almost all text input tools.
Design & Requirements
I like the forced simplicity of some of the dedicated hardware devices like those made by Freewrite but they're clunky and expensive. Many writing apps have a "distraction-free" mode but none of them go far enough. My goal was to build something with only one purpose—drafting.
Visually minimal
- App toolbar disappears when you type.
- Your words are always in the center of the window.
Functionally minimal
- No spellcheck, no autocomplete, no formatting, no copy and paste, no AI integration, no editing.
- No accounts. Everything saved locally.
- No custom fonts. The app just uses what's available on your device.
- No tracking.
- Works offline.
My initial sketch was very simple and pretty close to the final implementation. Give Wastebasket a try.
Side Quests: Metaphor, Naming, Animation
Coming up with a name for a writing app is hard. There are millions of them and they already make use of any word that has anything to do with writing. I was inspired by the old typewriter trope of crumpled-up false starts tossed in the bin. Wastebasket.com, like any word in English, was already taken but .app was not! I spent some time trying to come up with a more or less literal take on the name for an icon but they were all unreadable at small sizes. So I ended up going with the only important part of the UI—a letter and the caret.
I knew that I didn't want a typical trash can button for my app called Wastebasket, so I made a custom one. Even so, the label under my wastebasket button said, "Trash" for most of the time I was making this. I tried "delete,""start over," and "throw away" but I wasn't crazy about them. What I did kind of like about throw away was that it was connected to the idea of crumpled pieces of paper being tossed into a wastebasket. I started thinking about making animations of paper being thrown into the wastebasket button. But where would they come from? Nowhere. What if the icon could crumple and uncrumple, and the action was "toss?" That works well with "copy" and "save", the other actions you can can choose from.