Ben Lesh talks about ADHD and reducing “noise”

Ben Lesh says if you can do your best to actually get the users focus on what matters and kind of limit the noisiness of the other things that would be a big deal for certain folks. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule soundbite a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Ben Lesh. Hey, Ben, how are you? Ben Fine. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. Let's get right into it. What is your disability or your impairment? Ben So my my impairment is I have ADHD, and I have had it well diagnosed as far back as I think about seventh or eighth grade. So it's, it's been a long time. Nic So you're one of those folks that have had a chance to develop coping skills and techniques to work around that, right? Ben Yes, but I would say that I probably didn't develop many of those until later in my adult life, to be honest. Nic Right. You're a web developer. Is that right? Ben That's correct. Nic Yeah. So you live on the web, what what would be the greatest barrier you encounter on the web as it relates to your ADHD? Ben Well, ADHD, at least, for me, it's defined by two things. And it's different for everybody. But for me, specifically, I am quite forgetful when it comes to like executive function, like the things I'm supposed to do next. And like my list of chores to do, like, I tend to forget things. And then the other thing is, of course, like the impulse control, specifically, like getting into like Yak shaving or digging into, like, a problem, and then you dig into another problem. And... Or like getting really interested in some esoteric tech thing. And of course, the web is just chock full of these sorts of distractions, and even more, so like a lot of articles or different pages are actually engineered to try to keep you engaged, and stimulate you and get you to go after those things. And and I think it's, it's challenging to not get sucked into those things. And, you know, and still be able to remember, the other stuff that you have to get done and prioritize those things. Prioritization is a big difficulty when you've got that much stimulus. Nic How could websites do better to to reduce that kind of stress on you? Ben Oh, well, that's a good question. It would be, it'd be great if there were, you know, modes just to limit distraction. Another thing that gets me sometimes is just very noisy interfaces, or things where there's just walls of, of texts, like any sort of productivity tool or productivity website, that gives me too much information actually gives me a little bit of anxiety to look at. So if there were modes where you could kind of set those things to be more specific to your individual needs, that'd be great. Because I don't think it would be, you know, ADHD mode, because it's so broad for, like, a whole group of different needs between different people. But for me, personally, it'd be great if, you know, there was maybe fewer distractions or less noise on particular tools and pages, if I could toggle all that sort of stuff, it'd be great. Nic If you had one message to pass on to designers or other developers around accessibility, what would it be? Ben Specifically with regards to ADHD, it's, it's sort of hard to say but like, I think that it'd be very, like the the whole thing is, I went to art school, and I took design classes. And I think if you can do your best to actually get the users focus on what matters and kind of limit the noisiness of the other things that would be a big deal for certain folks. And then the other thing too, is yo