Table of Contents

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Introduction

                Refocus.io is an app for web surfers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), that aims to help them :                The purpose of this app is to help ADHD web surfers stay focused on a set task by changing the way they interact with a webpage through a Chrome Extension.  During our research, we found that this user population had three specific problems when using the web.

1.       Skimming. ADHD users tend to scan text, and tend to only view the first and last sentence of a paragraph, as their goal was to finish articles as quick as possible.

2.       Information Overload. How do we decide which paragraph, picture and link is most important? This was related to skimming, as users tend to skip boring information in pursuit of something more engaging.

3.       Depth first searching. Many ADHD users would engage with a link, but never return to the article. It was very easy for them to disengage with a page, even if the information they needed was contained within it.

We have a few ways of modifying this user behavior, which we hope will alleviate the severity of these issue.

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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

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1. of the page, the article is

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1. broken into chunks

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1.  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.

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1. Link

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1. 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".

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1. 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

Software Requirements: 

Setup Instructions:

1. Download file called Refocus_Extension from the DropBox here.
2.  Open up Chrome
3. Open up the settings tab by clicking on the three parallel bars in the top right of the screen
4. Select Settings
5. Click on the Extentions Tab, located above the Settings Tab
6. Activate Developer Mode, then Load the Refocus_Extension file.
7. Go to: http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/

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. Latest version of Google Chrome, can be found here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

Instructions: 

1. Open up Chrome
2. Download our Chrome Extension from: 

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1. 

Incomplete Elements:

1.       Chunking is only partially implemented. While it works well for TheGlobalMail, other pages may display odd behavior. Our responses are not hard coded -- there is a functional backend.

2.       Focus on Selection behavior is linked to some of the partially implemented Chunking, so there are still some bugs. Specifically, after all the selected text is displayed, the pop-up window may continue to loop through the text.

1. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ryzjfhxctnnyks4/mockup_extension.zip
2. Open up the settings tab by clicking on the three parallel bars in the top right of the screen
3. Select Settings
4. Click on the Extentions Tab, located above the Settings Tab
5. Activate Developer Mode, then Load the Refocus_Extension file.
6. Go to: http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/ 
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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!

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

4.       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.

5.       Preserving Progress List between Pages.

Canned Elements:

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

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

a.       Ideas canned: Note taking, timers, awards for articles red.

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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

1. Enable the extension.
2. Go to page http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/
3. Click the "Focus" button to read chunks of text. Try clicking on a link in focus mode.
4. Click and drag links into the Progress List. Check off some links and click "Clear completed"
5. Try Focusing on a selected part of the article by selecting text and right clicking on "Focus on Selection" 
6. Try the extension out with other similar articles/on the Global Mail site. Keep in mind that chunking may not work perfectly since this is a shallow-depth prototype. Similarly, links in the progress bar do not stay over multiple pages.