# Neurodivergent-friendly design — principles behind the board This board is built on well-established **executive-function–friendly** design principles — the same patterns ADHD/EF-aware tools use. It is designed to help *everyone* focus, and to be genuinely supportive for neurodivergent people. Two ground rules: - **Don't medicalize or assume.** Never diagnose a user or call it an "ADHD mode." Frame it as focus-friendly design for everyone. Every affordance is optional. - **Neurodivergence is heterogeneous.** "Meet one person with ADHD, and you've met one person with ADHD." So these are *configurable supports*, not a prescriptive system. > Provenance: grounded in established executive-function / ADHD design knowledge from recognized > sources — see **Sources** at the end of this doc (CHADD for executive function, Simply > Psychology for body doubling, and W3C/MDN for reduced-motion accessibility). These are > educational references, not a systematic literature review or clinical guidance. ## Challenge → principle → feature | Executive-function challenge | Design principle | Feature in the board | |---|---|---| | **Task initiation** — starting is the wall (activation energy) | shrink the first step; make "next" obvious | agent behavior: offer one tiny first action; **Focus mode** to surface a single task | | **Time blindness** — deadlines feel abstract until they're on top of you | make time concrete + visible | live **clock**; gentle **due countdowns** ("2h 10m left"), soft amber when past, never red | | **Working memory / object permanence** — out of sight, out of mind | keep it visible + externalized | always-on canvas; the **momentum feed** as external memory of the day | | **Overwhelm** — a long list paralyzes | reduce visible load; one thing at a time | **Focus mode** dims all but one; carryover keeps the list short | | **Dopamine / reward** — interest- & urgency-driven; needs immediate payoff | instant, visible reward + novelty | progress ring, confetti, momentum feed; **starting counts** (flip to in-progress — the partner can log it in the feed); rotating encouragements | | **Perfectionism / shame spiral** — miss one → abandon the whole system | no punishment; partial credit; easy defer | **"not today" carryover** (no overdue-shaming); "in progress" counts; carried items leave the ring math | | **Intrusive thoughts** — a stray thought pulls you off task | frictionless capture, deal with it later | **🧠 brain-dump box** ("park it, keep going") | | **Task-switching / transitions** | explicit "what's next" handoff | agent behavior: name ONE next action, offer Focus mode | | **Body-doubling** — focus improves with a present partner | be the other-in-the-room | the whole premise: you drive the board *by talking to your AI partner* | | **Sensory / motion sensitivity** | calm base, optional stimulation | **reduced-motion toggle** (kills confetti/transitions); honors `prefers-reduced-motion` by default | | **Self-regulation / interoception** — reacting before noticing your state | *locate yourself* without judgment first | **above/below-the-line check-in** (from Conscious Leadership); below-the-line quietly softens the partner's suggestions | | **Motivation / self-talk** — a bare to-do list is joyless | a kind, chosen intention | **daily mantra** — self-set or 🔄-suggested, keyed to the check-in (grounding when below, momentum when above) | | **Prioritization overwhelm** — everything feels equally urgent | separate *important* from *urgent* | **Eisenhower quadrants** (Do first / Schedule / Delegate / Later) + **sort by priority** + a 🧭 plain-language legend | | **Agency / ownership** — rigid systems get abandoned | let people shape their own tool | **drag-to-reorder** (or ▲/▼ / keyboard), **editable labels**, **add tasks** live (remove the ones you add) | | **Closure / reflection** — days blur together without a marker | end with a gentle, concrete recap | **end-of-day save** — download or copy a Markdown recap; paste it to the partner to journal and plan tomorrow | ## The most important part is behavior, not chrome The UI affordances matter, but the biggest EF support is **how the partner shows up**: shrink the first step, suggest one thing, celebrate starting, never shame an incomplete, offer carryover freely, park intrusive thoughts, make time concrete, protect against overload. Those are encoded in `SKILL.md` ("Executive-function-friendly behavior"). A pretty board with a shaming, do-everything partner would miss the point entirely. ## Sources Educational references behind the principles above (links verified live 2026-07-27). Not clinical guidance; neurodivergence is heterogeneous, so treat these as supports to adapt, not rules. - **Executive function — task initiation, activation energy, time management, working memory** — CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD), the leading ADHD nonprofit: - *Executive Function Skills* — https://chadd.org/about-adhd/executive-function-skills/ - *Executive Function Issues and ADHD* (Brown & Barkley models) — https://chadd.org/attention-article/executive-function-issues-and-adhd/ - **Body doubling** — focus improving in the presence of a partner; the board's core premise ("drive it by talking to your AI") — Simply Psychology, *Body Doubling and ADHD* — https://www.simplypsychology.com/articles/body-doubling-adhd - **Reduced motion / sensory sensitivity** — behind the reduced-motion toggle and honoring the OS `prefers-reduced-motion` setting: - MDN, *`prefers-reduced-motion`* — https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion - W3C WCAG 2.1, *Understanding SC 2.3.3: Animation from Interactions* — https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/animation-from-interactions.html - **Above/below the line — "locating yourself"** (the arrival check-in) — The Conscious Leadership Group, *Locating Yourself: A Key to Conscious Leadership* — https://conscious.is/video/locating-yourself-a-key-to-conscious-leadership - **Important vs. urgent** (the Eisenhower quadrant labels + "Schedule is where the good work lives"): - Asana, *The Eisenhower Matrix* — https://asana.com/resources/eisenhower-matrix - Todoist, *The Eisenhower Matrix* — https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eisenhower-matrix - **Self-compassion** (the mantra's kind, non-shaming framing) — Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion.org — https://self-compassion.org/ ADDitude Magazine (additudemag.com) is another widely used, ADHD-focused resource worth searching for deeper reading on task initiation, time blindness, and body doubling.