I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise mixer and self-test

Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by drakythe on Thursday June 26, 2025 @12:34PM (#44388968)

Immediate thoughts:

- Neat.

- Those images on the blogs look potentially AI Generated, which I'm personally turned off by. Others may vary.

- The first blog (by you?) is _very_ long, also "ADHD as Superpower" is somewhat of a trope that I, and others I've spoken with, aren't happy to have as a bullet point of why ADHD isn't the end of the world.

- Anyway, clicked on the "Procrastination" mood button and oh sweet lord there are so many buttons on this page and why do they have "likes" counted in the corner?

- The web developer in me admires the automatic resizing blocks. The user in me doesn't like that the buttons jump around as I click on them. E.g. I clicked on "breath loop" and the interface totally changed an I wasn't actually sure how to get back to where I was (Figured it out: Musical Stimulation), additionally I know there _was_ a button below breath loop but its moved and I forgot which one it was. I'd suggest categorizing the buttons and either hiding them in drawers or collapsible sections so there aren't quite so many immediately visible. And then I'd suggest keeping the controls for each technique in the same place on the screen and just highlight which technique is selected from the buttons, instead of dynamically moving the controls around. On any user interface I interact with regularly I don't even see or read them much anymore because I just know where the buttons I want to interact with are. On this page the buttons are constantly moving around, and I'm only on desktop, I'm sure its different on a phone but I'm almost scared to look (I looked, its good, but the constantly changing height of the scrollbar is a pet peeve of mine, so its functional, I just don't like it). If you don't want to move the controls to a consistent spot, I'd suggest giving the movement a bit of an animation (maybe with an option to disable it?) so people can at least get a feel for what is happening when they click a button instead of an instantaneous change that is impossible to track with their eyeballs.

- I don't love the "Atmosphere" button being in the bottom middle where text/images appear from the content, feels messy.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by jaysonelliot on Thursday June 26, 2025 @12:50PM (#44389102)

The AI generated images were an immediate turn-off to me as well. Whatever one thinks of the aesthetics, they're a huge signal that I'm looking at a product that's focused on monetizing me.

The overall design is unfocused and cluttered, just the exact thing I don't need as someone with ADHD.

I don't think I'd use this.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by nerdjon on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:09PM (#44389250)

Not only that, but it would also raise significant concerns about how any of the recommendations, treatments, blog posts, etc are made. Like are the different people for those blog posts real people?

This is particularly concerning for a tool like this, you already took shortcuts on images why should we expect anything less for the rest of the app? Has anyone that knows anything about ADHD actually ever looked at anything this app is saying?

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by digitalions on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:26PM (#44389391)

The blog is written by real people. So do the techniques. I'm just a bad designer so I decided to generate the pictures. But actually I have diagnosed ADHD myself and all the techniques are all I've collected all my life.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by bubblemoth on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:51PM (#44389656)

I opened the first blog post and I’m fairly certain most of this post is generated by AI.

I’m not trying to be mean, but it makes it difficult to trust any content on this site.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by 56544562 on Thursday June 26, 2025 @02:40PM (#44390086)

It makes it impossible. The content gives off the feeling that it will "take" and grab more than it will "give" and release.

ADHD, to me, always, even before the diagnosis, felt like a valve that doesn't open for no reason and due to the build up pressure, some other valve with different "filters" releases whatever mixture of thoughts and actions to compensate.

Children's sugar-induced behavioral roller coasters have a similar characteristic. And this website looks like too much candy without there being any candy.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by taco_emoji on Thursday June 26, 2025 @03:31PM (#44390500)

> The blog is written by real people

Sorry, I don't believe you. The way that the initial post has identical paragraph lengths with headers on every one is extremely uncanny. The prose is very dry, repetitive, often written in passive voice, and completely lacking in personality.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by hxii on Friday June 27, 2025 @05:32PM (#44400433)

All the em-dashes here solidify this being written by LLMs: https://www.adhdhelp.app/en/blog/i-thought-it-was-just-me-th...

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by drakythe on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:50PM (#44389647)

Be that as it may, it _does_ still raise questions about the content and sources. If you're a bad designer (I'm a pretty terrible artist/designer myself) then I urge you to source your images from someplace ethical. Try unsplash, or google free stock images, or go on fiverr and pay an artist who won't use AI (if you can find one? I haven't tried to user fiverr in a while)

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by digitalions on Thursday June 26, 2025 @02:12PM (#44389826)

Thank you. I didn't even know people were so negative about AI pictures.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by brulard on Thursday June 26, 2025 @04:25PM (#44390951)

Not all people. HN crowd specifically

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by brulard on Thursday June 26, 2025 @04:24PM (#44390932)

What? He should have paid an illustrator on top of doing everything else? I actually prefer AI art to be used, because more of the resources likely went to the essence of the product.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by digitalions on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:23PM (#44389365)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm a bad UI designer. But I've already found one and will make the UI better soon!

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by npteljes on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:24PM (#44389372)

One of the file name is "1750927062274_ChatGPT Image Jun 26, 2025, 11_33_18 AM (1)" - so yes, +1 for AI.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by digitalions on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:27PM (#44389403)

I'm just a bad designer so I decided to generate the images. :)

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by npteljes on Thursday June 26, 2025 @03:43PM (#44390602)

I don't blame you for it, as it's cheap, fast, and fits the context better than what can be provided usually. If you find that people are turned off by it, and want to act on it, I suggest stock images from places like Pixabay. They are royalty free so it's not much of a pain to use them, and there is a lot of good ones on the site as well. Downside is that they will probably be disjointed, like, every image will be its own style, which detracts from the unity of your website, but the upside is that you get rid of the negative associations with AI. Random idea, but you can use classical art as well, as they are all in public domain now. Then you could have the cohesion back: art, and humanity, which would fit the content well on a meta-level too.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by seba_dos1 on Friday June 27, 2025 @01:04AM (#44393839)

Bad but conscious design is usually still significantly better than AI slop.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by jedimastert on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:47PM (#44389617)

I concur on the AI generated images. There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images, I think you would be better off without images at all.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by dlivingston on Thursday June 26, 2025 @05:39PM (#44391732)

> There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images

Can you expand on this? I don't see the connection.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by lawlessone on Thursday June 26, 2025 @07:43PM (#44392546)

Anecdotally i've seen a ton of people online that do art ,taking commissions from people to draw specific things for them, that also often talk to each other about dealing with ADHD.

Not an artist or customer myself but just follow a good few of them.

What's worse is many of them would have had work they did scraped to train some models of the models displacing them.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by rockemsockem on Thursday June 26, 2025 @01:51PM (#44389650)

To add some variety, I think the images look fine.

Idk wtf is wrong with these people whining about AI generated images.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by npteljes on Thursday June 26, 2025 @03:37PM (#44390536)

OP not a publicly established personality, and the website is new too. So, they have a lot to prove, credibility chief among them, especially since the topic is mental health. Users discovering that some of the things are AI generated leads to a thought that maybe more, subtler things are AI generated as well - like the texts on the website. AI output is currently distrusted, and the companies' treatment of the authors of their training material is frequently questioned. So, this way, discovering AI content erodes trust, of which the author didn't have any to begin with - because they are just starting out!

So that is why AI is a deal. Looks-wise they are good, and they fit their context very well. But they do communicate much more than that, and that makes them iffy for many.

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Re:I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise ... by mitchal on Friday June 27, 2025 @02:18AM (#44394136)

The

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