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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-motionsetting:- 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
- MDN,
- 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.