Research Notes & Working Ideas

A minimalist map of ongoing research nodes and future paper directions, built with neurodivergent collaborators: this programme treats ND people as co‑designers of tools and protocols, not just as data sources.

Cognitive friction in service experiences

Ongoing work on measuring and modelling cognitive friction on top of traditional service metrics such as NPS, satisfaction, effort and KPI dashboards. This includes a factor‑analytic Cognitive Friction scale derived from a 3,017‑response service‑experience study on a Chinese lifestyle e‑commerce platform, with four latent dimensions (process opacity, orientation/search friction, promotional noise, price stability anxiety) linked to NPS, satisfaction and effort.

Status Manuscript in preparation (CHI/CSCW style), focusing on scale construction, EFA/CFA/SEM modelling and methodological lessons from repurposing industry data.
Next Replicate and adapt the factor structure in other services and contexts, and connect scale scores with ND‑led friction logs from mini‑labs and community deployments.
Working Document (NPS & Friction) → Deep Dive: Cognitive Friction in Operations →

Everyday decision-making micro-labs

Mini Decision Lab is a proof‑of‑concept for running small, focused experiments on everyday choices and cognitive friction, using tasks that matter to participants in their own tools. Current work combines an ND‑led protocol library (FrictionLog) with a shared cognitive friction schema to link longitudinal friction logs with a within‑subjects comparison of high‑ versus low‑friction task interfaces for personally meaningful tasks.

Status One open dataset (Mini Decision Lab, Zenodo) and a manuscript in preparation on ND‑experienced friction in everyday productivity systems and the effects of a protocol‑guided decision flow.
Next Extend the mini‑lab to additional protocols (e.g. escalation anxiety, sensory overload) and federate deployments across ND communities, while keeping data local.

Sociotechnical redistribution of cognitive load

A theoretical and methodological programme for treating neurodivergent‑friendly operations as a design question: how systems can be reconfigured to absorb cognitive load instead of offloading it onto vulnerable individuals. This programme ties together (1) system‑level cognitive friction scales derived from service data, (2) ND‑led logging and mini‑lab infrastructures (FrictionLog, WishPool, shared schema), and (3) everyday productivity experiments that examine how cognitive work is redistributed across people, tools and organisations.

Framework

FrictionLog protocols & shared schema

A small ND‑led protocol library and a minimal shared schema (frictionrecord, task, note, metric, tag) designed to turn recurring friction patterns into cumulative, tool‑agnostic research data. Protocols are implemented as configurable engines in everyday tools like Obsidian and write back into this schema, making cognitive friction empirically tractable without heavy‑weight platforms. The goal is to support people in the moment while leaving a structured trace for later analysis.

Infrastructure