FocusView: Understanding and Customizing Informational Video Watching Experiences for Viewers with ADHD

2025-07-17

AI Summary

Individuals with ADHD often experience heightened susceptibility to dynamic multimodal distractors—such as background music, rapid visual transitions, and dense information—when consuming informational videos. Method: We conducted a user-centered design study involving qualitative interviews and iterative prototype evaluations with 12 participants with ADHD, identifying substantial inter-individual variability in perceived distractors and distilling key design principles, including “minimalist customization dimensions.” Based on these insights, we developed FocusView—a customizable video player interface enabling fine-grained, on-demand adjustment of audio characteristics, visual pacing, and information density. Contribution/Results: Empirical evaluation demonstrates that FocusView significantly improves video watchability and sustained attention while reducing perceived distraction. The work contributes empirically grounded, reusable design principles for inclusive video interaction tailored to neurodiverse audiences.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Video Understanding & Activity Analysis
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness, privacy, and diversity in economic environments

Abstract

While videos have become increasingly prevalent in delivering information across different educational and professional contexts, individuals with ADHD often face attention challenges when watching informational videos due to the dynamic, multimodal, yet potentially distracting video elements. To understand and address this critical challenge, we designed extit{FocusView}, a video customization interface that allows viewers with ADHD to customize informational videos from different aspects. We evaluated FocusView with 12 participants with ADHD and found that FocusView significantly improved the viewability of videos by reducing distractions. Through the study, we uncovered participants' diverse perceptions of video distractions (e.g., background music as a distraction vs. stimulation boost) and their customization preferences, highlighting unique ADHD-relevant needs in designing video customization interfaces (e.g., reducing the number of options to avoid distraction caused by customization itself). We further derived design considerations for future video customization systems for the ADHD community.

Problem

• Addressing attention challenges in ADHD viewers of informational videos
• Designing customizable video interfaces to reduce distractions for ADHD
• Understanding diverse ADHD perceptions and preferences in video customization

Innovation

• Customizable video interface for ADHD viewers
• Reduces distractions to improve viewability
• Minimizes options to prevent customization distraction