You will see phrases on this site like "science-backed" and "designed for accessibility, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)". This page explains what is behind them, in plain words.
Several of us on the team are autistic, have ADHD or both. We know what it is like to lose a task when you switch to something else. We know how it feels to freeze at a form with too many choices. We have spent more energy fighting a screen than doing the work. We built Humble to solve this for ourselves first. Now we want it to work for anyone who has had to adapt to tools not made for them. You should fit in Humble as you are. You should not have to learn to cope with it.
Many people in education use accessibility claims loosely. We do not want ours to be like that. This page sets out what Humble does and what it is based on. It also says where there is still work to do. The page is updated as that work goes on.
People with ADHD and other access needs help design and test Humble. They are not just asked to check a finished product.
Humble follows a written set of screen rules. They aim to reduce cognitive load, which is how much your mind has to hold at once. For example, each screen has one main task. Colour is used only to show status. Nothing moves or changes size unless you made it happen. These rules come from published accessibility research. This includes guidelines written together with autistic adults. They do not come from our own opinion alone.
Every screen has a language check before release. That means sentence case, short sentences, no unexplained jargon and UK English throughout.
"Science-backed" means the research behind our design rules. It does not mean a clinical study of Humble itself. Humble has not had its own peer-reviewed trial yet. Instead, the screen rules are built on published research on accessibility and neurodivergence. They have also been checked against how people really use Humble. As more evidence comes in, including any research on Humble itself, this page will be updated. Sources will be added to the principles below.
These are the problems Humble is built to solve, and how each one is handled. We are gathering the published research behind them, so you can check it for yourself. That work is still going on. For visual accessibility, Humble is built to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA standard throughout.
Working memory is the part of your mind that holds what you are doing right now. That could be a due date, a half-finished sentence or the reason you opened a tab. It can only hold so much. For many ADHD brains, it fills up faster and empties sooner. That is why a due date can disappear the second something else takes your attention. In Humble, nothing important depends on you remembering it. The current step and what is still open stay on screen.
Time blindness means your sense of time does not match the clock. "Later" and "in 10 minutes" can feel the same. An hour can pass without you noticing. It is not poor planning or not caring. Humble shows clear countdowns and due times. So you do not have to rely on your inner sense of time.
Every extra thing you hold in your head has a cost. That could be what you were doing, which tab you were on or what comes next. For many ADHD and autistic brains, that cost is higher. It adds up across a day. Humble always keeps the current step on screen. So you never need your memory to find your place again.
In Humble, colour means one thing: status, not decoration. Humble uses a small set of colours that stay the same. There is enough contrast to read easily. So a screen does not fight for your attention before you start reading.
You should not have to relearn how a screen works each time you open a new part of Humble. Buttons, layout and patterns stay the same across the whole product. So you can use what you already know. You do not have to learn new rules for each area.
Most fields are optional unless they are truly needed. You are not asked to choose between options that do not matter. You are not stopped by a choice you could make later. Fewer required fields mean fewer times you have to stop and find the "right" answer before you go on.
Read the standard Humble is built to: WCAG guidelines (opens in a new tab)
Have you seen a claim on this site that needs a source? Or do you know research we should cite? Email us
On each partner programme, we look at how often students use Humble. We run short check-ins on overwhelm and confidence at the start and end. We also use the partner's own data on work handed in and students staying on. See how a funded programme works.
40%
Higher grades for students who used the Humble AI study assistant on a university course. The course professor reported this. The course aimed for a lower failure rate, and it met that aim.
