Instructions

Now we will combine everything we’ve learned together into a practical application for user experience. You will take the perceptual, low-level cognitive, and high-level cognitive principles you’ve learned and design an experience that helps people with ADHD to learn how to budget. Base your work strategically on found research online and provide your sources. The end-result should be documentation for how you’re intending to design the experience such that people with ADHD are aided in budgeting. You only need to prototype the main budget flow, not all screens. Follow the deliverables and rubric for exact instructions. There’s a template you can follow in Figjam, or you can make your own deliverables in Figma.

You must submit this homework in order to receive a certificate of completion for the course.

Project Template

Follow this template for your deliverables: https://www.figma.com/board/NA2wNeTdbQWzi8VlHU5iNv/Jan-2025-Brain-Psychology-and-UI-Design-Masterclass?node-id=288-880&t=MkrS2GVtVZYcZl4A-0

Goals

  1. Research and document they key factors that negatively affect brain psychology in people with ADHD and list the design principles that help:
    1. Motor-based
    2. Perceptual-based
    3. Low-level cognitive processes
    4. High-level cognitive processes
  2. Build a user experience that helps people with ADHD learn how to properly budget. You decide the features of the application based on what you think will provide the most value.

Deliverables

See the rubric for more details.

  1. Product Requirements Documentation
    1. A brief list of struggles that people with ADHD face, and design principles to adhere to based on brain psychology of ADHD.
      1. Motor-based
      2. Perceptual-based
      3. Low-level cognitive processes
      4. High-level cognitive processes
    2. A brief description of the strategic approach your application is going to take towards helping people with ADHD learn how to budget based on brain psychology principles.
    3. A list of UX heuristics you are going to apply for people with ADHD, and how you are going to apply them, based on the principles of brain psychology we learned and what you learn about ADHD.
  2. UX Design Documentation
    1. A user persona document showing a person with ADHD’s attributes:
      1. Possible demographics characteristics
      2. Key motivations of people with ADHD
      3. Common struggles for brain psychology in people with ADHD (based on your research)
    2. A task flow for the main “budgeting” experience
    3. Low-fidelity prototypes for the main “budgeting” experience (up to 5 screens, desktop only).
    4. A design annotation (screens with sticky notes) calling out the intended design for people with ADHD and the applied areas that can help people from a brain psychology standpoint (just like we did in class).

Rubric

Deliverable Description Format Considerations
User persona for people with ADHD Help readers “walk a mile in the user’s shoes” by showing a user persona document for people with ADHD. This can either be kids or adults, you choose, however, your brain psych principles will differ between children and adults so your project work must adhere to the specific audience you choose. Figma or Figjam 1. Put it in the format you choose
  1. Provide the following content:
    1. Possible demographics characteristics
    2. Key motivations of people with ADHD
    3. Common struggles for brain psychology in people with ADHD (based on your research) | | Task flow showing the main “Budget” flow | Create a task flow diagram that shows the business logic of your intended user experience when someone is trying to budget in your application. | Figma or Figjam | 1. Show the business logic in the app
  2. Show what the system or the user is expected to do at each step
  3. Show the if / then decisions that the user or system should do
  4. Look at task flow diagram documentation online if you need help | | Low fidelity prototypes of the main “Budget” flow | Design the experience for the main flow for the end-users. Do not prototype the registration flow, prototype the main “budget” flow. This should be up to 5 screens showing desktop only, black and white low fidelity | Figma or Figjam | 1. Black and white
  5. No need to make them clickable, it’s your choice. However, if you do not make them clickable, place “arrows” between screens so that it’s clear where buttons or CTAs go
  6. Show content that the end-user should see in the experience, do NOT show “lorem ipsum. Think about how you’d word things for brain psych principles you’re applying | | Design annotation | Combine your screens that you have designed with sticky notes showing each area that you have purposefully designed, and why it’s beneficial for people with ADHD from a brian psychology standpoint | Figma or Figjam | 1. Follow the same way we annotated UI in class: screen with sticky notes, one idea per sticky note | | Lists of brain psychology struggles that people with ADHD face | Focus on the brain psychology factors we learned in class:
  7. Motor-based
  8. Perceptual-based
  9. Low-level cognitive based
  10. High-level cognitive based In order to do this, you will need to perform online research. Document your sources as you list your brain psychology principles. Do NOT use AI prompts for this, do real secondary research. | Figjam or Word Doc or Notion | 1. Provide this in ist format
  11. Quote your source
  12. Do NOT use AI prompting for this, find it yourself on reliable sources (academic journal articles or other trustworthy sources) | | Specific brain psych-focused UX Heuristics for people with ADHD | A list of UX heuristics you are going to apply for people with ADHD, and how you are going to apply them, based on all of the principles of brain psychology we learned and what you learn about ADHD. | Figjam or Word Doc or Notion | 1. Provide this in ist format
  13. Quote your source
  14. Do NOT use AI prompting for this, find it yourself on reliable sources (academic journal articles or other trustworthy sources) | | Strategy approach to the experience | Write one or two paragraphs describing the struggles that ADHD people have in terms of brain psych and how you are approaching the overall experience of the result you’re building. | Figjam or Word Doc or Notion | 1. Paragraph form
  15. Keep it high level
  16. Tell a story of how your experience will bring value and solve problems based on how people with ADHD experience the world |

Glossary

  1. Demographics - traits that have to do with a person’s background from a cultural, societal, social, or socioeconomic perspective. Resource: https://guides.lib.uh.edu/business/demographics
  2. Design Annotation - a deliverable that shows screenshots and notes associated with those screenshots. In the world you can use annotations to depict lots of things, but for this purpose, you’ll be annotating the decisions you’ve made for this interface in the homework, and why you’ve chosen to do that based on brain psychology principles. Here’s an example https://uxdesign.cc/design-annotations-that-will-make-your-developers-happy-d376d4453d9d?gi=1b22069c993a
  3. High-level cognitive processes - complex processing in the brain (see week 3 lectures)
  4. Low-level cognitive processes - processing in the brain that relates to perception (see week 2 lectures)
  5. Low-fidelity - a term that describes something that’s not polished or exactly drawn to specification or scale. They tend to look “unfinished” but importantly convey concepts, and have real text content as well so that a concept can be conveyed. Resource: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-prototype-hi-lo-fidelity/