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Independent product lab

That thing you just felt? We build software that teaches like that.

SplitFire Labs is an independent product lab. One literacy per product, one game per concept — felt first, named after. Honest by design, always.

See what's on the bench Get Lab Notes
LIVE

Before we say anything — try this. 20 seconds.

The demo needs JavaScript. Here's what it does instead:

Which store header can you use without thinking?

A
◆ShopSearch…👤🛒
✓ the convention
B
🛒👤Search…◆Shop
everything mirrored

Logo left, cart right is the near-universal convention — you find the cart before you even look. That's Jakob's Law, and feeling it beats reading it. Play it for real →

On the bench

The shelf.

Every product is a cartridge. New literacy, new cartridge. Right now there's one you can play — and one that's brewing.

Next cartridge

Ideation

Something's brewing. Lab Notes readers see it first — and get a vote on what we build next.

Follow along
Call it before we tell you

The Daily Split.

Everyone roasts bad design. We hand you the receipts — the law's name, the honest fix, and a round that lets you feel it. Start with today's.

Same three numbers, two bar charts. Which one is lying?

A

Y-axis starts at 0. The bars look about as different as the numbers actually are — barely.

B

Y-axis starts at 96. A 2% gap now looks like one bar towers over the others.

Make the call
Browse every split

Or dig through the Crime Index — every roast filed by pattern — and Fossil Friday, where the interface's dead languages come from.

How we build

The House Rules.

  1. 01

    Feel first. If you can play it, you shouldn't have to read it. Every concept we teach, you experience before we name it.

  2. 02

    Honest by design. No fake timers. No guilt buttons. No countdown that resets. If our business needs a dark pattern to work, we change the business.

  3. 03

    Accessible by default. We teach contrast ratios; we pass them. We teach error prevention; we practice it. Audit us — the checklist is public.

All six rules — and the public audit we hold ourselves to
Built in the open

Lab Notes.

Every note is a decision and what happened. One real number, occasionally self-critical, never spun.

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The whole point

One email when it matters.