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Building for ADHD will make your product better for everyone
Users with ADHD often suffer from an extreme lack of focus that can uncover hidden product issues.
I’m ashamed to admit that I used to be sceptical of ADHD. Then, I was forced to eat my words when, as an adult, an immediate family member was diagnosed with it.
I started to think about how badly the modern world is designed for people who struggle with focus. Let me show you an example:
When booking a flight with Ryanair, you’re bombarded with options — seats, car hire, bags. Your choices are constantly questioned. By the time you’ve got to payment, you’ve forgotten which day you’re flying. At the same time, notifications from other apps are asking for your attention. No wonder so many people find it difficult!
Do any of your users have ADHD?
You wouldn’t think it from the typical smartphone/website experience, but it’s highly likely your products are used by people with ADHD. It’s widespread — for example, in the US nearly 10% of children are diagnosed with ADHD.
As well as high levels among the general population, ADHD may be particularly prominent in SaaS for creative professions. This is because, at least anecdotally, people with ADHD appear to feel a natural calling for fields like product management and product design (did you know, for example, that Bill Gates has ADHD?).
Furthermore, attention related issues don’t just affect users with ADHD. All of us could do with a hand focusing more from time to time. As The Masters point out, users with attention deficit are on one end of a scale that we all sit on. As such, users with ADHD can flag areas of friction for everyone that might otherwise go unobserved. As they say, you should always design for outliers.
If you can get users who struggle with focus to onboard and sustain interest in your product, just think what you can do for everyone else.
Using UX techniques like Ryanair might give you some short-term gain. But your customers will look to go elsewhere as soon as possible if they feel…
