Research Recap with Skye: Video Accessibility for ADHD and What the Science Says

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
Today, I’m joined by Skye Waterson for another Research Recap. In this series, we explore a single research paper—what it says, how it was conducted, and what practical takeaways we can find.

In this episode, we’re discussing a paper called “Shifting the Focus: Exploring Video Accessibility Strategies and Challenges for People with ADHD.” It sounds a little out there—and honestly, this paper is a bit different. So Skye, want to start us off?

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon

William Curb: Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
Today, I’m joined by Skye Waterson for another Research Recap. In this series, we explore a single research paper—what it says, how it was conducted, and what practical takeaways we can find.

In this episode, we’re discussing a paper called “Shifting the Focus: Exploring Video Accessibility Strategies and Challenges for People with ADHD.” It sounds a little out there—and honestly, this paper is a bit different. So Skye, want to start us off?

Skye Waterson: Absolutely. It’s a really interesting paper. It’s another qualitative study—so upfront, it’s not meant to be generalizable. It’s focused entirely on individual experiences.
The researchers wanted to look at how people with ADHD actually engage with video content. There’s been a lot of accessibility work for people who are blind, deaf, etc., which is fantastic. But there hasn’t been much on ADHD specifically. What’s frustrating about video? What’s helpful?

Before we even get into the study, do you want to take a moment and think about what you personally like or dislike about videos? Then we can compare it with what participants said.

William Curb: Yeah, that’s one of the things this paper brought to mind—how rarely I think about why certain videos work or don’t work for me.
For example, I speed up almost everything I watch or listen to. If the pacing is too slow, my mind drifts and I lose the thread. Speeding things up keeps me engaged and gives me less time to get distracted.

Skye Waterson: Same—I only slow videos down when I’m trying to fall asleep.
The researchers also noted earlier studies showing that captions, redundant information, and the ability to pause or rewind help people with ADHD. Then they interviewed 20 participants who self-identified as having ADHD. It wasn’t a DSM diagnostic process—just people who believed they had ADHD. Many also had co-occurring conditions.

William Curb: Right—they intentionally didn’t limit the sample to ADHD alone. ADHD has so many “friends,” as we say. In this small sample they had people mention autism, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and so on.
They also had more women than men, plus some non-binary participants, which is becoming more common in qualitative ADHD research.

Skye Waterson: Exactly. It was very much about gathering a range of perspectives.
One theme that came up over and over: frustration. People got distracted easily, needed engaging content, fidgeted, zoned out, or went down video rabbit holes. Some used video as background stimulation. Captions helped a lot. Slow pacing was a big issue. And participants wanted more “redundant information”—multiple ways of taking in the content.

William Curb: That’s actually how I structure this podcast—introduce what’s coming, dig into the content, then review key takeaways at the end. A friend once joked it’s the Baptist preacher format, but it really does help reinforce information.

Skye Waterson: Yes! “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” It works.

William Curb: And it’s funny—there’s that age divide where some people think everything should be a video, and others think everything should be an article. I’m absolutely the kind of person who sometimes thinks, Why is this a video? I’d rather read and jump to what I need instead of rewinding 20 times.

Skye Waterson: Same. And when you look at long-form content—like recordings of workshops or trainings—that’s where people really struggle. I’m currently trying to get through a workshop recording, and it’s so much harder than being there live. There’s preamble, tangents, slow pacing… and if you can’t speed it up, it’s torture.

William Curb: Right—and there are two sides here: what users can do, and what presenters can do.
For users: fidgets, playback speed, minimizing distractions, etc.
For presenters: captions, pacing options, visuals, and multiple forms of the same information can help immensely.

I often pair an audiobook with the physical or ebook version so I can read and listen at the same time. That dual input is way more engaging.

Skye Waterson: Same—and environment matters too. If I need to actually focus, I’ll go to a coffee shop or get on my treadmill. If I stay at my desk, I’m checking emails.
And then there are tools like AI chatbots or interactive workbooks that help people engage with the material in multiple modalities.

William Curb: On the presenter side, even something simple like switching camera angles—or in our videos, switching to whoever is talking—adds visual engagement.
I sometimes count seconds between camera changes in TV, and it’s usually every 3 seconds. Even calm shows like Bake Off constantly switch angles to keep attention.

Skye Waterson: And if you can’t afford fancy edits or multiple angles, at least having multiple speakers helps. A conversation is naturally more dynamic than a single talking head for an hour.

William Curb: Something that came up repeatedly in the study was how personalized preferences are. Someone might love captions centered on-screen while someone else absolutely hates that. Some read fast, some read slow. Stand-up comedy with captions? I have to turn them off or I read the punchline before it lands.

Skye Waterson: And then there’s the quality issue—bad AI captions, delays, censorship in written captions… It can be a mess.

William Curb: So the big takeaway is:
For viewers—experiment with tools and approaches that help you stay engaged.
For creators—use accessible, ADHD-friendly design where you can. Captions, pacing options, visuals, summaries—these aren’t hard to add and they help everyone.

Skye Waterson: Exactly. And for people with ADHD, knowing these strategies exist gives permission to try them. Some people still don’t know you can speed up a video.

William Curb: Yeah—sometimes I show someone a video on my phone and they’re horrified because it’s on 2× speed. Then I switch back to normal speed and that feels painful.

Skye Waterson: It does take a minute to adjust. But once you get used to faster speeds… you never go back.