Evaluation of Why Individuals with ADHD Struggle to Find Effective Digital Time Management Tools
Open accessAbstract
After a long history of being viewed as a children's disorder, it is now recognized that Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can affect adults as well. Individuals with ADHD often exhibit work habits significantly different from neurotypical individuals. This paper investigates the use of time management tools among adults with ADHD with the goal of determining where there may be room for improvement in current digital tools so that they may better assist our target demographic. We present findings from a survey of adults with and without ADHD. Our findings indicate dissatisfaction among ADHD adults with the tools currently available to them and highlight key areas for potential development.
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Across HCI studies, there is a tendency to design systems that address perceived neurodivergent behaviours from an external viewpoint without adequately considering internal struggles.
“Across a number of studies [9, 29, 30, 39, 54, 55, 64, 74, 81, 90, 93], there is a noticeable tendency to design systems that address perceived neurodivergent behaviours, often from an external viewpoint, without adequately considering the internal struggles experienced by neurodivergent individuals.”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
The Effectiveness of Strategies section suggests that many tools are built for neurotypical people and may not serve people with ADHD well; the Conclusion calls for tools designed with that population in mind. The paper does not establish a tendency across HCI studies to design for perceived neurodivergent behaviours from an external viewpoint, or say that such designs overlook internal struggles. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSome students used additional digital platforms linked to their email accounts with calendars, meetings, and tasks all linked together with different devices.
“Some students used additional digital platforms, specifically linked to their email accounts with calendars, meetings, and tasks all linked together with different devices [29].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
The Physical versus Digital Tools section (page unavailable) reports that participants used digital tools, most commonly Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Reminders. The Specific Strategies section also reports use of calendars and to-do lists. Neither section says these were students using email-linked platforms that connected calendars, meetings, and tasks across devices. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredMany neurodivergent adults intentionally create systems to help self-manage and cope with their symptoms in daily life.
“Many neurodivergent adults intentionally create systems to help self-manage and cope with their symptoms win daily life [29, 93].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
The Specific Strategies section reports that participants used multiple time-management strategies and that alarms, alerts, and timers may help mitigate ADHD-related difficulties. It does not establish that they created their own systems, and its focus on adults with ADHD does not support the broader claim about neurodivergent adults generally. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThere is an emerging body of work that involves neurodivergent adults in knowledge creation such as co-design and acknowledges the importance of neurodivergent perspectives in technology design.
“However, there is an emerging body of work that involves neurodivergent adults in knowledge creation such as co-design and acknowledges the importance of neurodivergent perspectives in technology design [39, 64], such as a 2019 study, which relevantly investigated why existing digital time management tools remain inadequate for ADHD adults [29].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
The gap investigated by this work lies at the intersection of HCI work that actively involves neurodivergent subjects and literature investigating neurodivergent individuals in higher education and broad accessibility of universities and their systems.
“The gap investigated by this work lies at the intersection of the mentioned HCI work which actively involves its neurodivergent subjects [21, 29, 39, 64, 64, 93], and the body of literature which investigates the experience of these neurodivergent individuals in higher education [4, 14, 15, 51, 57, 70], as well as work investigatigating the broad accessibility of universities and their systems [3,”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
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Research works printed but not linked: 5
- Rosanna P. Breaux, Joshua M. Langberg, Stephen J. Molitor, Melissa R. Dvorsky, Elizaveta Bourchtein, Zoe R. Smith, and Cathrin D. Green. 2019. Predictors and Trajectories of Response to the Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) Intervention for Adolescents With ADHD. Behavior Therapy 50, 1 (Jan. 2019), 140-154. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2018.04.001 · DOI
- Thomas E. Brown. 2006. Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults. Yale University Press. Google-Books-ID: lLHWuSekLwUC.
- Judith Harrison, Bruce Thompson, and Kimberly J. Vannest. 2009. Interpreting the Evidence for Effective Interventions to Increase the Academic Performance of Students With ADHD: Relevance of the Statistical Significance Controversy. Review of Educational Research 79, 2 (June 2009), 740-775. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0034654309331516 · DOI
- Soheil Mahdi, Marisa Viljoen, Rafael Massuti, Melissa Selb, Omar Almodayfer, Sunil Karande, Petrus J. de Vries, Luis Rohde, and Sven Bölte. 2017. An international qualitative study of ability and disability in ADHD using the WHO-ICF framework. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 26, 10 (Oct. 2017), 1219-1231. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00787-017-0983-1 · DOI
- Annika Skold. 2007. Self-rating of daily time management in children: psychometric properties of the Time-S: Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy: Vol 24, No 3. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy 24, 3 (2007). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ abs/10.1080/11038128.2016.1185465 · DOI
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ADHD and Technology Research – Investigated by Neurodivergent Readers
Spiel, K., Hornecker, E., Williams, R. M., & Good, J. (2022) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3517592 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education
Tcherdakoff, N. A., Marshall, P., Dowthwaite, A., Bird, J., & Cox, A. L. (2025) · Proceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work · doi:10.1145/3729176.3729193 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“The gap investigated by this work lies at the intersection of the mentioned HCI work which actively involves its neurodivergent subjects [21, 29, 39, 64, 64, 93], and the body of literature which investigates the experience of these neurodivergent individuals in higher education [4, 14, 15, 51, 57,…”
InfluentialTcherdakoff, N. A. P., Stangroome, G. J., Milton, A., Holloway, C., Cecchinato, M. E., Nonnis, A., Eagle, T., Al Thani, D., Hong, H., & Williams, R. M. (2025) · Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706599.3716288 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“While these environments often pose accessibility barriers for neurotypical individuals [11, 40, 46, 57], the additional complexities neurodivergent academics face can further hinder success and confidence [4, 12, 13, 17, 19, 22, 47, 52, 54, 59, 61].”
- Authors
- Desrochers, B., Tuson, E., & Magee, J.
- Affiliations
- Clark University (US)
- ORCID
- Magee, John
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2019-10-24
- Pages
- 603-605
- OpenAlex
- W2982237170
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.57
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) (publishedVersion)
- Clark Digital Commons (Clark University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1551590)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Personal Information Management and User Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Keywords
- adult ADHD, time management tools, work habits, user dissatisfaction, tool design improvement, neurodiversity
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