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Glacier: Case study on accessible design for neurodiversity

Date:2022

Project brief/Overview: This project was done for a capstone course in my final year of University. The brief was open-ended, stating that I was to make a research project on my own from start to finish.

My Direction: I wanted to use this opportunity to try my hand at doing primary research, and using what I’d learned from my time in university to make a project that extended beyond graphic design.

Why do some tools work, while others don’t?

If disability comes from a mismatch of the users capabilities, and the tools’ demands on the user, does this concept of accessible design also apply in the case of differing cognitive abilities?

Problem

Medication is the most effective form of treatment for ADHD. But it’s not a silver bullet. Many adults continue to struggle with symptoms of ADHD after being medicated.

Organization tools that some friends found very helpful, seemed to fall short for myself, and others I knew who had ADHD. I felt that there was a lack of effective tools designed for adults with ADHD, and wanted to investigate why this seemed to be the case.

Although many organizational and productivity tools exist, I believe they’re designed with an assumption about what the capabilities of the users are. I suspected that because of this, many tools that exist are designed in ways that are incompatible with the capabilities of the average person with ADHD, if they rely on certain capabilities that are impacted by ADHD.

Approach

I spent 3 months doing secondary research into ADHD, and its impact on individuals. After getting a broader picture on the disorder, I put out a call for interviews. I wanted to speak with people that were unsatisfied with their medications alone, to try and understand what they continued to struggle with, and how they managed these unaddressed areas.

I was particularly interested in seeing where certain solutions were found to be ineffective. My hope was that by investigating exactly where certain management techniques failed, a pattern or general theme might emerge that would point me towards the assumptions of ability that were incongruent with the general strengths of those with ADHD.

I asked participants about their experiences with ADHD and ADHD treatment. At the time, I didn’t have a goal in mind about the exact area I wanted to investigate, so I wanted to get a better understanding of what their strengths were, and where they found difficulties.

I spent some time speaking with them about the strategies and techniques they used to manage their symptoms, and what kinds of solutions they tried that didn’t work for them.

Ultimately, my goal was to see if I could find a solution that would leverage their strengths, and weaknesses, to their benefit.

I want to thank all of those who participated. This project would not have been possible without you, and although I don’t entirely believe that the solution I present here is “the right one”; I hope to bring what I’ve learned about designing for neurodiversity to whatever projects I take on from here.

Thank you all for so generously giving me your time, and telling me about your experiences.

I’m honoured to have worked with you all.

To solve a problem, you first need to learn the problem

Coming into the research I suspected that memory was one of the areas not entirely addressed by medication.

The secondary research revealed that prospective memory (memory of intentions), in particular memories that are dependant on time or time based cues, continued to show impairment on medication. On the other hand, prospective memory relating to environmental based cues were not impaired.

I wanted to explore ways to leverage the capabilities those with ADHD had against the capabilities that were compromised.

Research Details

My findings from the papers were broad, as was anticipated given the complexity of the problem.

From the psychological literature, I learned that most symptoms of the disorder were effectively treated with medication. Across all the papers I read, only 2 items stood out: working memory deficits (debated), and time-based prospective memory deficits.

Prospective memory is the ability to associate an intention with a certain event (even-based) or time (time-based) cue.

The paper on prospective memory (Khan et. al) found that people with ADHD had continued difficulty when attaching intentions to time-based cues (even when medicated), but had greater ability (than controls) when attaching intentions to environmental cues.

From the very beginning, my hope was to find a solution that either leveraged the strengths that result from the disorder, or to find a way to leverage a weakness into a strength.

Mapping hypothetical scenarios of normal controls vs ADHD as represented in the literature

Exploring time perception in ADHD and its relation to the hypothetical scenario

Looking for places in the scenario where an intervention could be helpful in the later design stage of the project.

Snipped of research paper and insights drawn.

To learn a problem is to know its impact

I started with a literature review, then designed intake surveys, and finally held interviews that ranged from 30 minutes–1 hour to learn about my participants experiences with their treatment, and their own techniques.

If one thing became clear, it was that their own strategies for managing their symptoms were far more precise than anything I could design for them.

If I was to create anything that could help, it had to be something that was open ended, and could be used by my participants in whatever ways they chose.

Interviews

My hopes with the interviews was to both get a better sense for where people continued to find difficulty with their ADHD symptoms, and also to try to allow their voices and concerns be heard. If time permitted, I would have loved to have more participant involvement in the design stages. I believe that any project that aims for accessibility benefits tremendously from repeated feedback from potential users as they represent a major stakeholder.

I found that that the literature on prospective memory did present itself in some small areas in the interviews, but overall, there was little overlap between participants and their experiences.

After the interviews, it was clear to me that I could not create a better solution for any of the participants than the systems that they had created for themselves.

Upon completing this project, it’s clear that if I were to ever open this project again, I would want to give the participants more opportunities to have their voices heard in the early design stages.

Preliminary Ideation and Low-Fidelity sketches

Brainstorming based on online reviews of existing tools

Exploring potential features and functions

To solve a problem is an endless process

Every problem presents unique opportunities, and in this sense, problem solving doesn't have a definite solution.

Instead of trying to produce a definite solution (although that is what I did as a requirement of the project), I wanted to create a tool that could be used as a part of each users individual problem solving process.

If I were able to take this project further, I would have wanted to have more interactions with my participants and opportunities to receive feedback.

Solution Details

The final solution was a series of LED indicator lights (Icebergs) that paired with a mobile app.

The mobile app would hypothetically connect and sync with the users digital calendar, and create environmental cues to indicate particular intentions or reminders. For example, an LED (Iceberg) placed by the door would light up reminding you to confirm that you watered the plants before leaving the house.

The intention was to leave this interface open-ended so that users could utilize the tool in whatever way could work best for them. The objective of the tool was to help them turn time-based intentions into environmental ones (leveraging their environmental awareness to their benefit).

My goal was not to create a system for users to use, but a tool that they could use in creating a system for themselves.

I believe that by creating a dedicated indicator that exists in physical space (as opposed to mobile notifications), the experiences of the cues would be more salient, and have more significance.

This was something that I identified when investigating the relationship between people with ADHD and time. ADHD creates a present focus, and so “out of sight-out of mind” is much more literal. There was potential for mobile notifications to only “exist” for users when they were looking at their phone, whereas a physical object can be, well, “in sight-in mind.”

Mid-fidelity screens of the app. Users would be able to select what they wanted to associate with indicators.

I wanted the users to be able to set cues that were time and/or date dependant

Process: Adding, modifying, and viewing items. Semantic categorization was a decision to allow users to create their own associations between colours and the nature of the items they chose.

Selecting reminders to focus on (Left), and temporary reminder lists (Right) that would allow users to store temporary daily reminders. These lists would clear after a set amount of time decided by the user.

Iceberg LED indicator settings would give users control over how they received these indications.

There are a set of indicators in the shape of the three icebergs in the logo.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to make a genuine prototype, so paper demo's were made instead. The colours are to demonstrate how they would hypothetically light up.

Reflection

Where I went wrong

From the beginning of the project, I had designed my interviews to only include those that had an ADHD diagnosis with no co-occurring disorders. I believed that this would allow me to see in clearer detail, the effects of ADHD alone, as other mental health conditions can present ADHD-like symptoms.

However after looking at the intake surveys, roughly 70% of those that filled the survey had at least 1 other mental health condition. The problem here is that it seems that the actual experience of ADHD doesn’t exist in isolation, and excluding this group from the study actually meant that my data was less representative than the majority of the population I hope to help.

Another mistake in the design of the research was not interviewing any people without ADHD. Because I myself have ADHD as well, I was missing a control, and had nothing to contrast the reported experiences of my participants against.

Where I succeeded

I think my approach to find a common theme among what my participants reported was the right decision in the research phase. I believe that this searching for a pattern allowed me to identify where I should direct my attention, but also allowed me to cross examine the psychological literature against real world experiences.

I also believe that the approach to leverage ADHD strengths and weaknesses was the right one. Increased attention to environmental changes does require attentiveness, but it also leans on a certain propensity for distractibility, and impulsivity. These often considered weaknesses in ADHD can actually be the root cause behind the greater event-based responsiveness seen in those with ADHD. I believe by creating a system that allows individuals to leverage these traits would lead to a more effective and compatible solution.

There was a great deal of nuance and complexity over the course of this project, and very early on I realized that any serious attempt at a complete solution required much more than myself alone. Even though I don’t believe the solution I created is necessarily complete, I learned a lot about the challenges of designing for accessibility, and about my own capabilities as a designer/researcher. This was the most challenging project I had done to date, and so it allowed me to really see what areas I was strong in, and in what areas I needed improvement.

Strengths

I achieved an overall brand, and logo very quickly, and although it isn’t as developed as a complete branding project would have been, I think that my ability to quickly put a vision together early on allowed me to focus more of my energy on the research and brainstorming phases.

I think that drawing insights from my research felt very natural, and so I don’t feel that analyzing the research to come up with ideas held me up as much as I thought
it would have.

Areas that need improvement

Looking over my brainstorming again, I can see that there are plenty ideas, but very little structure and organization to them. My ideation process was very unstructured and disorganized. I think that learning how to ideate and iterate ideas effectively and in an organized way would have helped along the way.

I also found quite a lot of difficulty in clearly and succinctly describing this project. I found myself often struggling to put my thoughts in order when trying to create a complete description of this project that wasn’t complicated, and left few questions.