Small Screens, Big Overwhelm
*Opinions are mine, conclusions are yours. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't. Respectful disagreement always welcome unkindness never is.
There is a version of an app that designers are very proud of. Clean. Minimal. Nothing unnecessary on the screen. Everything tucked behind a swipe or a long press or a three-dot menu you have to already know exists to find. It won awards probably. It has a five-star rating in the App Store from people who describe it as intuitive and sleek and so easy to use.
Then there is you, standing in a parking lot, trying to find the one setting you need, opening and closing the same three menus, wondering if you are the problem. You are not the problem.
What "Clean" Actually Means
Minimalist design became the gold standard because it works well for a specific kind of brain. One with strong working memory that can hold a mental map of where everything lives while simultaneously doing the task it opened the app to do. One that fills in gaps intuitively, makes reasonable assumptions about hidden navigation, and does not lose the thread when the interface requires a little detective work.
For that brain, a hidden menu is not really hidden. It is just implied, and the implication lands cleanly. For a neurodivergent brain, that implication is a wall. Working memory differences mean you may not be able to track where settings live while also executing the task you came to do. Attention differences mean the moment you go looking for a buried function, the original task is gone. Processing differences mean an unfamiliar gesture or icon is not a minor inconvenience, it is a full stop. And sensory differences mean an interface that pulses, animates, or shifts unexpectedly is not sleek. It is destabilizing.
The cognitive load did not disappear when the designer removed the buttons. It got redistributed onto the user and for brains already running a heavier baseline load just to move through a standard day, that redistribution is not neutral. It is expensive.
Who We Are Actually Talking About
This is not a niche conversation, an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the global population is neurodivergent, a figure that encompasses ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and other cognitive variations. That is not an edge case, that is a substantial portion of every app's user base, quietly navigating interfaces that were never tested with their brains in mind.
The fixes that would actually help are not complicated or radical. They are just good design that happens to be essential for some users and better for everyone:
Visible navigation that does not require discovery or prior knowledge to find
Consistent placement of core functions across updates, so a working mental model does not get wiped with every patch
Reduced motion options that do not require navigating three layers of accessibility settings to locate
Text labels alongside icons so a symbol does not have to carry the full weight of communication alone
Customizable layouts that let users build an interface that fits their cognitive style rather than the designer's preference
WCAG compliance alone does not always address the diverse cognitive and sensory needs of neurodivergent users. A website or app that meets technical accessibility standards may still be genuinely difficult to navigate for individuals with processing differences or executive function challenges.
The User Nobody Asked
UX research tends to optimize for the median user, the person whose cognitive profile sits closest to the assumed default. Usability testing catches the obvious failures. It does not reliably catch the experience of someone whose working memory dropped the thread when the bottom navigation shifted between screens, or someone who spent four minutes looking for a button that used to be visible and is now behind a gesture introduced in the last update. Updates deserve their own conversation. For neurodivergent users who have, after real investment of time and energy, finally built a working mental model of an app, an interface overhaul is not an improvement. It is a full reinstall of a system they worked hard to learn. The muscle memory is gone. The spatial map is wrong. Everything that used to work now requires relearning, and relearning has a cost that does not show up in the patch notes.
When neurodivergent perspectives are included in UX research, the payoff is building more inclusive digital experiences for everyone. The person who struggles most with your interface is not an outlier to be accommodated after launch. They are your clearest signal during design.The tech industry keeps asking neurodivergent users to adapt to interfaces built without them in mind and calling the struggle a skill gap but when a significant portion of your users are white-knuckling their way through your intuitive product, the interface is the bug. Not the brain. Designing for cognitive diversity is not a constraint on creativity. It is not a checklist item or an afterthought for the accessibility tab in the settings menu. It is the whole point of design in the first place.
Simplicity that only works for some people is not simplicity. It is just exclusion with better fonts.