Research Agenda
Independent systems research on cognitive friction and neurodivergent‑friendly operations.
I start from ND bodies, account for cognitive friction, and ask how this cost should be redistributed within systems.
I use NPS, satisfaction, effort and dozens of KPIs to locate cognitive friction precisely in concrete touchpoints and roles.
I conduct independent research from Hangzhou, using global South operational practice and metrics to characterise system‑level structures of inequality.
This research programme is tightly coupled with my industry work in product, UX and operations. I use live systems – supply‑chain platforms, internal tools, ND‑heavy teams – as both research environments and deployment grounds for ideas. Findings from this site feed into the tools, dashboards and protocols I design on my product / UX profile, and industry constraints shape the questions I pursue here.
Research snapshot
| Core question | Where does cognitive friction accumulate in sociotechnical systems not designed for neurodivergent people, and how can system‑level changes redistribute that burden? |
|---|---|
| Current materials | Enterprise NPS study N ≈ 3,000 · ND‑led friction logs · 3 live protocol engines · shared JSON schema · 2 Obsidian plugins in community registry |
| Methods | NPS / KPI analysis · protocol and diary study design · qualitative friction coding · schema‑based longitudinal logging |
| Status | One WiP paper (CHI 2026) · protocols in active use · schema implemented in live tools · ~3 years to full‑scale publication programme |
| Publication target | Primary target: CHI 2026 / CSCW 2026 · Secondary targets: TOCHI, DIS |
| Research site | research.neurodivergent-friendly.com |
| Industry Profile | Product, UX & operations profile → |
| Working ideas | Research notes & working ideas → |
Current programme
My ongoing research programme links three strands:
- an enterprise‑scale NPS service experience study (N ≈ 3,000) mapping after‑sales cognitive friction in a mid‑scale Chinese e‑commerce platform
- the Friction WishPool and protocol library, where neurodivergent participants turn lived cognitive friction into structured inputs for protocol and tool design
- the Inner Kingdom System, a three‑layer cognitive OS and shared data schema connecting internal parts, protocols, and everyday work and life events
This programme is already running at a small scale: one enterprise NPS dataset (N ≈ 3,000), live ND‑facing tools in Obsidian, and an initial shared schema, with room to grow into larger cohorts and cross‑domain studies over the next 3–5 years. On the industry side, these strands show up as concrete product decisions: how service dashboards are structured, how internal tools surface friction, and how ND‑friendly protocols are embedded in everyday work. That side of the work is documented on my product & UX profile.
Live Projects
Ongoing studies and prototypes that ground the agenda in real systems and data.
- NPS Service Experience: An NPS‑based service experience study mapping qualitative friction points to operational dashboards. see /projects/nps-service-experience
- Friction Wish‑Pool: FrictionLog, a participatory protocol library for identifying shared cognitive bottlenecks. see /projects/friction-wish-pool
- Inner Kingdom: A system modeling framework for internal state management and usage stories. see /projects/inner-kingdom-system
Methods & Protocols
My practice combines ND‑led protocol design, structured friction logging, and mixed‑method analysis. I treat protocols (for example, Dimension Reduction, Inner Council, Boundary Check) as configurable engines that turn raw, messy experience into repeatable steps, data points, and patterns that can be reused across teams, tools, and future studies. These protocols are ready to be deployed in other labs / teams with minimal adaptation. In practice, this means teams can adopt these engines directly in their workflows, while I treat them as both operational infrastructure and long‑term research instruments.
[see Protocol Library] → /protocols
Infrastructure & Tools
I maintain a small toolchain that implements the shared schema in everyday work:
- Cognition Compass (Obsidian plugin) – friction logging and Dimension Reduction
wizard that writes
friction_record,task_entityand weekly JSON / CSV exports in my schema. - PersonalOS / Quiet Friction (Obsidian plugin) – trauma‑informed, low‑demand
awareness and state logging that populates
metric_entityandc_noteover time. - Obsidian releases integration – plugins are distributed via the Obsidian community
registry (
obsidian-releasesfork), giving a ready path from lab protocols to everyday users and future study cohorts.
Together, these tools form a concrete "friction → protocol → action → reflection" pipeline that can be reused in research collaborations, protocol trials and ND‑heavy teams.
Technically, this means Markdown + YAML schemas in Obsidian, JSON/CSV exports, and a small
set of server‑side scripts that map plugin output into the shared friction_record / task_entity / metric_entity / c_note / tag_entity model.
Open research objects
Selected prototypes and tools released as citable open research objects (e.g., on Zenodo), to make early‑stage ideas reusable and inspectable.
- Mini Decision Lab – A lightweight experimental micro‑lab for everyday decision‑making, released as an open, citable research object on Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19048213).
Data & Infrastructure
Underneath these projects is a shared schema for friction records, tasks, notes, metrics, and tags, designed to support longitudinal ND research and tooling. Data currently comes from enterprise NPS logs, community‑run protocols, and early prototypes. Over time, this infrastructure is meant to support cross‑study aggregation and tooling for ND‑friendly decision‑making in operations and product.
Background & Experience
This research site is one half of my work; the other half lives in product, UX and operations roles in industry. I treat them as a single system viewed from two angles: here I maintain the conceptual, methodological and data backbone, while on the product profile I document how those ideas land as tools, dashboards and protocols inside organisations.
For industry and lab partners, this means you are not choosing between “a practitioner” and “a researcher”. You are getting someone who runs a continuous research programme on cognitive friction and neurodivergent operations, and then tests it under real operational constraints.
I start from ND bodies and specific operational breakdowns. Before turning to independent research, I spent 12 years designing and operating supply‑chain and service systems at companies such as Amazon and Geely. This shop‑floor experience is now the backbone of my research on functional neurodiversity, especially where systems treat people’s attention and time as adjustable inputs, forcing ND individuals to override their own nervous systems.
For potential Research Groups / Mentors:
- Work with Me: Co‑authoring CHI/CSCW level work, integrating my datasets into your projects, and jointly shaping new studies. [details in Background / Work with Me]