This industry perspective is by Tom Alexander, digital design director at Conran Design Group.
For the 15% of the US population that are neurodivergent, neuroinclusive design can spell the difference between a product that opens doors and one that slams them shut. Because what might be a bold, impactful interface for neurotypical brains can be a sensory overload for those who are neurodivergent.
But neuroinclusive design isn’t just a moral imperative; it makes good design sense too. A calmer, smarter, more human approach can enhance the user experience for everyone.
The same holds for broader inclusive design, like TV captions. Originally designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, captioning has become a tool that helps everyone follow conversations and storylines regardless of viewing environment. Likewise, clear mobile layouts, readable fonts and good contrast help us all on our morning commute when we’re scanning emails while ordering our morning coffees.
Looking to embed neuroinclusive design into your brand? Here are some principles to bear in mind:
Reduce the Risk of Sensory Overload
Imagine walking into a room: the music’s playing too loudly, someone’s having a raucous conversation on the phone, the lights are flickering. And somehow, against this cacophony of noise, you’re expected to concentrate on the task at hand. This is what some digital experiences can feel like for neurodivergent users.
Automated motion and sound, harsh color palettes, intrusive ads, and flashing banners can all be triggers for sensory overload. For those with autism and ADHD, they aren’t just distractions: they can be triggers for anxiety and dysregulation.
There are several ways to limit sensory overload. Offering an exit strategy from auto-play is one. Auto-play videos can look great – but designers should always give users the option to switch them off. Even Netflix, known for autoplaying previews of its movies and television shows, gives users the option of pressing pause.
When it comes to light sensitivity, highly saturated color schemes can be an issue, so when appropriate, designers should consider using muted, low-stimulation colors. Calmer shades that reduce cognitive strain and limit distractions make digital environments more welcoming to a broader range of users.
Take Spotify’s 2015 brand refresh, where the company swapped its muted green UI color palette to a more vibrant hue. What seemed like a subtle shift in branding had a big impact on the lives of those using the service, with social media users calling attention to the importance of intentional UX design for those with sensory sensitivities.
Spotify’s subtle color palette shift had a big impact on the lives of those using the service, with social media users calling attention to the importance of intentional UX design.
Keep It Simple
If the design of a service makes people think too hard about what they need to do, they’ll likely give up before they’ve even started. This is especially true for users with ADHD, dyslexia, or executive function challenges. For these audiences, dense content, complex flows, and lack of pacing can be exhausting.
The content itself is often not the challenge; it’s the way it’s delivered. Designers should build a sense of “what’s next” and a comfortable rhythm to guide users, whether through a contents page or a specific set of actions. Digestible steps can be introduced for longer tasks, while accordions and tabs can be used to hide content before it needs to be accessed.
Shopify’s checkout is a great example. Instead of overwhelming users with a lengthy form, the process walks you through step-by-step: first contact information, then shipping and delivery details, then payment. By only providing users with what’s needed at each step in the process, the experience becomes less overwhelming for neurodivergent users.
Some audiences also need confirmation that the system is doing what it should. Tiny cues make a big difference; for example, Gmail and WhatsApp confirm that messages have been sent or deleted. These kinds of notifications can reduce anxiety and leave users with a positive impression of the service or product itself.
Say What You Mean
Neurodivergent users can read, process, and interpret language slightly differently, especially those with dyslexia, autism, or other processing challenges. So it’s important to mean what you say. Dense copy, idioms, metaphors, and unclear instructions can make digital content feel like a puzzle to be solved.
Content should work like traffic signals: direct, obvious, and impossible to misread. Use plain, literal language with no jargon or metaphors. Label buttons and links clearly, and pair simple icons and imagery with copy to reduce ambiguity. The goal is to remove the risk of users misinterpreting what a brand is trying to say, and let’s face it, this is no bad thing for neurotypical users either. In a world where attention spans are limited, simpler is always better.
Content should work like traffic signals: direct, obvious, and impossible to misread.
Stick to What Your Audience Knows
When products behave the way we expect them to, they gain our trust. When menus move and layouts shift, neurodivergent users can feel anxious and potentially disengage. Jakob Nielsen’s fourth usability principle — consistency and standards — comes into play here. Users shouldn’t have to relearn how things work from one app to the next; familiar patterns save brainpower and make the design more accessible for all.
We applied this thinking when designing an employee experience app for a major UK retailer. With a user base spanning different roles, age groups, cognitive needs, and native languages, we had to lean into familiar UI patterns and best-practice wayfinding to ensure the app was accessible to the widest user base possible. One key piece of advice to remember: consistency doesn’t mean boring; it means usable.
Make Customization the Norm
One-size-fits-all interfaces don’t cut it for neurodivergent users, or anyone else, for that matter. Designers need to create experiences that flex to the individual, such as offering tools to adjust text size, and thoughtful fonts and colors to help reduce visual strain, sharpen focus, and keep people engaged.
These features should be part of design conversations from the outset, and either built in natively or delivered through trusted tools, ensuring that anyone using the application or website can design an experience that meets their needs.
The Future Is Neuroinclusive
The next wave of inclusive design will be even more personalized, intentional and dynamic than ever:
Sensory “cookies” (3-5 years): Users in the EU regained control of their data through GDPR, so why not the sensory experience too? This would enable users to personalize settings like motion, contrast, and typography by default; people could opt in to low-simulation experiences in the same way that we currently do with cookies.
AI-powered sensory control (5-8 years): Focus modes from Slack and Notion have already shown us what calmer digital spaces can look like. But with generative AI, we’re moving beyond toggles. Apps like Spectrum already check in with users and adjust how the AI responds based on the response. Now imagine this applied to sensory input: AI that helps users dial things down when the interface becomes too much.
Emotionally adaptive interfaces (8+ years): If we accept that AI can respond to what users say they need, imagine what it could do if it could sense what they feel. Researchers have already developed apps that recognize facial expressions and posture to monitor user responses, dynamically adapt layouts, simplify controls, and make adjustments based on emotional cues. So we’re partway there. AI could soon have the ability to make design inclusive, without additional input from the user.
What does this all mean for design? First, reduced clutter and cleaner, clearer interfaces. But it also means giving users more control over how they interact with your brand.
The hope is that neuroinclusive design stops being seen as an afterthought and becomes recognized and appreciated for what it is: more intentional and impactful design. Design that’s better for neurodivergent users is better for everyone else, too.
As digital design director at Conran Design Group, Tom Alexander is responsible for creative concepts and design within the digital space. As a multi-disciplined UX designer, his ethos is that the user should be placed at the centre of everything we do, and that the functionality of design should always match its visual appeal.
Header image by Joshua Reddekopp on Unsplash.
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