# The 10-minute overview

> The short read that gets you from zero to your first well-made deck.

Read this once before you build. It's the whole picture in a few minutes — what
Deckberry does with your cards, the handful of habits that separate a deck people
finish from one they abandon, and the path from a blank deck to a published one.
Every idea here has its own deeper page; follow the links when you want more.

## What spaced repetition does

Deckberry brings each card back right before the learner would forget it. After a
card, the learner rates how well they recalled it, and the schedule stretches or
shrinks automatically — easy cards drift weeks apart, shaky ones come back tomorrow.

You never manage any of that. The scheduling is the app's job. **Your job is to
write cards worth remembering** — clear, honest, one idea at a time. Get the cards
right and the system does the rest.

## Five habits of a great deck

Almost everything about good deck-making comes down to five habits. Skim them now;
each links to a page with real before-and-after examples.

- **[One card, one fact.](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/one-fact/)** If the answer has
  an "and" in it, it's probably two cards. One fact per card keeps every review a
  clean pass or fail.
- **[Ask, don't display.](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/ask-dont-display/)** The front
  of a card should be a question the learner has to _retrieve_ the answer to — not a
  heading they simply re-read.
- **[Small decks that finish.](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/small-decks/)** Twenty
  good cards beat two hundred scraped ones. Aim for 20–100 in your first deck; a deck
  people complete beats one they bounce off.
- **[Write for the stranger.](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/write-for-the-stranger/)**
  Cards arrive alone, in random order, sometimes months apart. No "as we saw above" —
  each card has to stand on its own.
- **[Answers you can self-grade.](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/self-gradable/)** Keep
  the answer short enough that the learner can honestly say "did I know that?" in one
  breath.

## Choose the right card type

Start with **Basic** — a plain question and answer covers most of what you'll ever
make. Reach for **Cloze** when you want fill-in-the-blank (one note can expand into
several review cards), and **Rich Media** when an image or audio clip _is_ the
question. More card types are on the way to the editor.

Not sure which fits? The [card-types guide](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/card-types/which-to-use/)
walks through when each one beats plain Basic.

## Name it so learners find it

A deck's title and description aren't decoration — they're how a learner decides
whether to study it.

- **Title:** what a learner searches their memory for. Specific beats cute —
  "English Irregular Verbs — the 100 you actually meet" tells them exactly what
  they'll walk away with.
- **Description:** two or three sentences written for a human deciding whether to
  study — who it's for and what they'll be able to do afterward.
- **Language and category:** set them correctly; they power how learners discover
  your deck in the app.

More on all three in [Title & description](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/building/title-and-description/)
and [Language & category](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/building/language-and-category/).

## From draft to published

The flow is short: **create the deck → add cards → preview it → publish.** Publishing
is always a deliberate click — nothing goes public on its own. Before you press it,
run the quick [publish checklist](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/workflow/publish-checklist/): cards
proofread, every image sourced, and — the one people skip — study your own deck once,
end to end, as a learner would. The [editor tour](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/workflow/editor-tour/)
shows each step.

## Write your first deck

Pick one subject you know cold. Aim for 20–100 cards, one fact each. Give it an
honest title and description, study it through once yourself, and publish. That's a
real deck people can learn from — and the best way to get a feel for the habits above
is to make one.

When you're ready, open the editor and start with a single card. You can always add
more tomorrow.

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[Read this guide on Deckberry](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/getting-started/overview/)