How to Achieve Deep Work While Working from Home
This project is a microlearning module designed for a fictional SaaS company's employee professional development program. The prototype demonstrates storyboarding, visual brand development, and application of Mayer's principles, delivered in a minimal, accessible design style built for a corporate LMS context.
The design problem
Remote work removes physical office structure, but it doesn't automatically replace it with focus. Younger and more junior employees at distributed companies often struggle to protect time for cognitively demanding work when home environments, notifications, and unclear boundaries compete for attention.
The challenge was designing learning that could easily fit into a busy workday. Professional development only works if people engage with it, and that meant building something short, visually clean, and immediately actionable... Not another course that competes with the inbox.
What I built
A ten-screen microlearning module designed for a fictional mid-sized SaaS company. The course covers the benefits of deep work, the three core ingredients for building a sustainable practice (location, duration, and structure), and closes with a knowledge check and completion screen. Content is written in informal, direct language to match the pace and register of how junior employees actually communicate at work.
Interactivity is intentional but restrained: a click-to-reveal interaction on the "ingredients" slide lets learners explore at their own pace, while the quiz question reinforces the single most actionable concept from the course.
Key design decisions
Visual design follows Mayer's principles of multimedia learning throughout: coherence (decorative elements are kept minimal), signaling (clear typographic hierarchy guides the eye), and segmenting (one idea per screen). The aesthetic was informed by current corporate brand trends: flat illustration, open layouts, and an accessible color palette that meets WCAG contrast standards.
Character illustrations were selected to be approachable without being cartoonish, and to reflect diversity across the course. Typography and color contrast were validated against accessibility guidelines at every screen.
Desktop-first was a deliberate choice, consistent with how professional development content is typically consumed in a corporate LMS environment.
Process and tools
I started with a text-based storyboard, using AI to help brainstorm, organize ideas into an outline, and draft multiple-choice question options, keeping the planning phase lean so more time could go toward visual design and iteration. Visual assets were built in Canva, Adobe Illustrator, and PowerPoint, with a custom brand style guide created to establish consistency across the course and align with the fictional company's identity.
What's next
This prototype was built to validate the instructional design and visual direction before investing in full development. A fully developed version in Adobe Captivate is currently in progress, which will include polished interactions, proper branching on the quiz, and LMS-ready output.