About:
Draw a problem nobody can solve.
People who live with messy, tangled problems put them in the pool. You draw one at random, read the brief and follow a proposed design process, with sources to back every step.
Category:
Design concept
Year:
2026
Design framework:
Wicked problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973)
Draw
Brief
Process
Submit
The problem:
Wicked problems, as Rittel and Webber described them in 1973, resist a clean answer. There is no definitive formulation, no stopping rule, and every attempt counts. They are hard to frame, and even harder to start on.
Goal:
Design a place where people who live with tangled problems can put them in a pool, and designers can draw one at random and get a brief, a starting design process and sources to work from.
My role:
Concept, content and interface design, from the full service in round one to three visual directions and the final direction.
Methods:
•
Concept design
•
Content design
•
Information architecture
•
Interaction design
•
Visual exploration
•
Prototyping
The service
Round one designed the whole service: the draw, the pool, the brief and a way to submit a problem.
/01
The draw
One draw, one problem. No rerolls until you have read the brief. The home screen shows how many problems are in the pool and that every process has six phases.
/02
The pool
Eight curated problems across eight domains: work, food, housing, public services, health, cities, circularity and climate. You can browse instead of drawing, filtered by domain.
/03
From the outside in
Anyone can put a problem in the pool, ideally one they or the people around them live with.
You describe it. The problem in one sentence, what is happening and why it is hard, who is affected.
A process and sources are drafted.
A curator reviews the brief and adds problem-specific sources.
It joins the draw.
The brief
Every problem opens into a brief: context, a design challenge, why it is wicked, a proposed process and sources.
/01
The problem and the challenge
Each brief states the context, the domain, the scale and who submitted it, and ends with a design challenge as a How might we question. For example: How might we help location-independent workers build belonging that survives moving on?
/02
Why it is wicked
Three of Rittel and Webber’s ten characteristics, explained for the specific problem. Isolation among remote workers has no definitive formulation, is a symptom of other problems such as housing churn and visa rules, and has no stopping rule, because people keep moving.
/03
A proposed design process
A starting route, not a recipe. Six phases, each with an action tailored to the problem and suggested methods: frame the mess, map the system, reframe, co-create, probe, and learn and adapt.
/04
Sources
Sources on the problem itself, plus core reading on wicked problems and process, from Rittel and Webber (1973) and Buchanan (1992) to Dorst’s frame innovation, Meadows’ leverage points, the Design Council’s Double Diamond and the 100metod library.
Directions
Round one was set aside. Round two explored three directions for the draw itself.
/01
A, poster
The problem as a giant headline on a saturated colour, with a round draw button.
/02
B, newsprint
The Wicked Draw as a newspaper: problems delivered at random, with the situation, why it resists a fix and where to begin in three columns.
/03
C, reels
A slot machine of people and problems, spinning until a pull lands on one.
The tangle
Round three took direction A and developed it further.
/01
A2, the tangle
Each problem appears as a submission in the voice of someone who lives with it, next to a living map of the forces pulling at it and the groups caught in it. The map drifts and pushes away from the cursor, and pulling another thread re-tangles it.
The counts sum it up: forces pulling at it, groups caught in it, and zero clean answers.
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