Focus at Work: New Research on Cognitive Accessibility

Date & Time

Thursday, March 21, 2024 - 10:20 AM PDT  

Location

Platinum 8  

Description

Doing focused work is the key to success in the workplace. Yet, focus is hard to find and sustain in today’s digital environment. According to research published in Harvard Business Review, the average knowledge worker context-switches 1,200 times per day, loses 23 minutes before returning to an interrupted task, makes more errors and experiences more stress with each interruption.

The struggle to focus at work is even more prominent for employees with neurodivergence. In summer of 2022, we conducted a user research study to understand what challenges employees with ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, Depression, Brain Fog, PTSD, and Chronic Pain experience most regularly. The top five challenges all pointed to fighting loss of focus.

In this session, we will share themes we heard from interviewing these employees about their challenges and workarounds to make software usable for themselves. We will talk about the role of cognitive accessibility in designing better solutions than current-day workarounds, especially when it comes to controlling focus.

This Presentation Link is provided by the Presenter(s) and not hosted by the Center on Disabilities at CSUN. The Center on Disabilities has confirmed, as of April 4, 2024, content linked is relevant to the presentation, but has not been reviewed for accessibility nor will the Center on Disabilities attempt to remediate any accessibility issues in the linked content. Please contact the Presenter(s) with any accessibility concerns.

 

Audience

• Information & Communications Technology
• Disability Specific
• Research & Development
• Employment & Human Resources

Audience Level

Beginning  

Session Summary (Abstract)

Doing focused work is key to success for employees. Yet, controlling focus is hard in today’s digital workplace. Discover insights on cognitive accessibility from our research with knowledge workers who have neurodivergence and want to be productive.  

Primary Topic

Cognitive & Learning Disabilities  

Secondary Topics

• Design
• Digital Accessibility
• Employment & Workplace
• Research

 

Session Type

General Track  

Presenter

• Christina Chang
  Geshido Corporation

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