Introduction

                Refocus.io is an app for web surfers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), that aims to help them stay focused on a set task by changing the way they interact with a webpage through a Chrome Extension. The potential users we interviewed all had problems with skimming information, losing focus due to large sections of text, and getting distracted by clicking on links and failing to do the task at hand. You can read more about our User Research here.

Our app has 3 key features:

1. Focus Mode:  By clicking the Focus button that hovers on top of the page, the article is broken into chunks the page based on paragraphs and presented in a pop up window. The user can navigate through the chunks by using the keyboard or the left and right arrow in the pop up window. This prevents users from getting overwhelmed by large blocks of text.
2. Link Queueing: Links can be dragged from the page into the link queue. While in Focus Mode, left clicking on a link will automatically add it to the queue. This prevents distractions due to link clicking, and allows users to maintain a "task list".
3. Selective Focusing: Some users only want to read a small section of an article. A user can select text in the article, then right click to open up the drop down menu. By selecting “Focus on Selection,” only the selected text will be chunked and Focused on.

Installation + Setup

Platform and Software Requirement:

This is a Chrome Extension, so you will need to use Chrome as your browser. The extension works on Mac and Windows. 

Instructions: 

1. Download our Chrome Extension from: 

2. Open up a new tab in the Chrome browser and type into the address bar of a new tab "chrome://extensions"

3. There should be a button labeled "Load Unpacked Extension." Click on this button and select the folder that you saved on your computer. 

Depth

Focus Mode/ Chunking:

Partially implemented. Works well on certain websites (especially news sites like TheGlobalMail). Our responses are not hard-coded, we have a functional back-end!

Pictures will be implemented into Chunking once we determine how to prevent ads from being “Chunkified.” This content is distracting.

As of writing this wiki, dragging a link to the Progress List may lead to the page scrolling away from the content. Once adding the link, the page will return to its original location automatically.

Sidebar/Link Queue:

Almost completely implemented.

You can drag and drop links onto the sidebar, check off or remove queued links. You can also Clear Completed items and hide and show the Sidebar.

However, there is no memory currently because we have not fully implemented the backend. I.e., if you navigate to a new page, the Progress List will refresh.

Clicking on Links in focus mode will automatically add these links to the sidebar.

Selective Focusing:

You can select some text, right click "Go into focus mode" and it will chunkify the selection. However, there are still some bugs, and it may keep looping through different chunks/positions on the page.

Sample Scenarios

Elements we got rid of: (read GR1)

Highlighting: Additional colors were deemed distracting during user testing. Further, we couldn’t ensure the colors would work with novel webpages.

Gamifying: The buzz word of the year. Most of our users are very easily distracted, and adding more features distracted away from content.

Note taking, timers, awards for articles red.

Reporting Mechanism: A lot of ADHD sufferers rely on a third party (Family, Friend, Teacher, etc…) to monitor their progress and ensure they are on task. In talking with our TA, we realized this may be outside the scope of what makes sense for the project.