Assignment 2: Divergent Design ​

Application name, audience, values ​

Name ​

ADDapp (can turn into a verb! "I ADDapped you").

Audience ​

People with ADHD/ADD, but can also be autism-friendly.

Values ​

Current social media apps are designed to maximize user engagement with features like endless scrolling, notifications, recommended algorithms, and ephemeral content, which can be particularly challenging for individuals with ADHD. These are related to the most problematic social media usage¹, so it's crucial to create an ADHD-friendly platform that encourages healthy habits and mitigates the risk of addiction.

Feature brainstorming ​

• Time control: set daily maximum amount of usage hours.
• Red mode: to stimulate production of melatonin, so users aren't up all night scrolling.
• Hyperfocus reminders: introduce random and unobtrusive reminders to switch tasks or take breaks at irregular intervals to interrupt hyperfocus.
• Focus mode: locks the access to certain features, so the user can control themselves.
• Maximum reply: can't reply to a post more than twice (avoids discussions and produces more robust content).
• Hierarchy for posting: depending on the user "status", they can post more or less.
• Algorithm: personalizes feed.
• Private version: a private version of the user's profile for friends.
• As you spend time on the app, less and less algorithmic content shows: encourages new topics, but pushes a person into doing something else.
• Scheduled content posting: reduces pressure on real-time interactions.
• Offline mode: limits distractions caused by constant connectivity.
• Visual distraction reduction: offers simplified version of the app.
• Explanation of emotions involved with a post (sarcasm, joke, serious, etc): people with ADHD sometimes may have a superficial understanding of a matter, so it's easy to spread fake news.
• User-curated content collections: so people can find their niches more easily.
• Digital detox challenges: encourages users to take periodic breaks from the app and provides rewards for doing so.
• Focus metrics and analytics: offers detailed metrics and analytics on users' attention spans, screen time, and productivity patterns.
• Simultaneous video viewing (watching multiple videos at the same time).
• Messaging.
• Friendship: the ability to befriend other users, so they can send content to each other.

VSD analysis ​

Red mode to stimulate production of melanin ​

Offering a red mode choice may lead bedtime social media users to rely on it, potentially disrupting their sleep. Others that used different means to fall asleep may adopt the app, starting a nighttime phone use habit. Science warns for a long time now of phone use pre-sleep's harm ². An alternative could be eliminating the choice, with the app gradually activating "red mode" from 6 pm onwards.

Algorithm that personalizes feed ​

Tailored feed favors addiction and creates polarization, the latter being specially harmful to democracy and social cohesion in the long-term. An alternative could be reducing the amount of content showed due to the algorithm, but, more importantly, using the data to recommend personalized new hobbies to the user.

Random and unobtrusive reminders to switch tasks ​

"TikTok sometimes suggests me that I'm spending a lot of time on it. I feel terrible. Yes, I know I have problems, TikTok, but you don't need to remind me!", Nathan said during our interview. Those direct reminders can lower self-esteem, and, if they're random, people may start ignoring them. Instead, the app shouldn't control the usage, but congratulate the user when they have less hours on a day than on the previous.

Can't reply to a post more than twice ​

Limiting the amount of times a user can comment may come across as censorship, or even inhibit the sense of community. It may also mitigate discussions completely, which is not healthy for human critical thinking. An alternative can be running sentiment analysis when processing a post and, if detecting hateful content, alert the user that that may not be appropriate for the community.

Simultaneous video watching ​

Although screen-splitting captures an ADHD user's attention, it increases misinterpration, which can damage cyber awareness and spread fake news. An alternative can be, although not as innovative, to simply minimize distractions and use visual aids, in order to always retrieve the user's attention.

Identifying concepts ​

User ​

Purpose: collecting appropriate data and avoid impersonations.

Operational principle: the user creates an account with their email, phone number and password, and, after logging in with their credentials, they have a personalized version of the app.

Main feed ​

Purpose: collect all posts from all users in a single place.

Operational principle: every time a user posts, the post is added to the feed.

Post ​

Purpose: make people engage with each other.

Operational principle: the user can write a text with a maximum amount of characters and attach to it a video or an image. When posted, the post goes to the main feed.

Comment ​

Purpose: adds to the sense of community.

Operational principle: users can click the comment button at the end of a post and write a reply. The comment will be attached to the post, and other users can also see it.

Content-matching ​

Purpose: offer more content within the user's interests.

Operational principle: by gathering the user's data (amount of time they spend in certain videos, which videos they comment on, etc), the algorithm sorts the feed from more relevant to less relevant content to the user.

Friendship ​

Purpose: facilitate sharing of posts.

Operational principle: users send each other friendship requests, that, when accepted, allows friends to exchange text messages and share links to posts.

Red mode ​

Purpose: stimulates gradual production of melatonin, to diminish hyperfocus.

Operational principle: starting from 6pm on the user's local time, a red filter is gradually applied to the app's screen, and removed at 6am.

Congratulate system ​

Purpose: give users a boost of serotonin when they decrease their social media usage.

Operational principle: every time a user's total usage time in the previous day was less than two days before, displays a congratulations message.

Emotion-teller ​

Purpose: give away the tone of a post, for users' better understanding.

Operational principle: after every post, the author has to pick between many tones ("joke", "sarcasm", "sincerity", etc) that summarizes the content, displayed for the reader in a box at the end of the post.

Sentiment analysis ​

Purpose: avoid harmful discussions and hate speech.

Operational principle: after an user hits the enter key for a post, run a sentiment analysis to detect hateful content. If detected, display an alert to the user that that post may not be appropriate, but still give them the option to post.

Dependency diagram ​

UI sketches ​

¹ Dekkers, Tycho J, and Jorien van Hoorn. "Understanding Problematic Social Media Use in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Narrative Review and Clinical Recommendations." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9776226/pdf/brainsci-12-01625.pdf.

² Kheirinejad, Saba, et al. "'Leave your smartphone out of bed': quantitative analysis of smartphone use effect on sleep quality." https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-022-01694-w.