Dev proposes 'Spoon Dial' to make financial UIs accessible for neurodivergent users

A developer has proposed a cognitive-capacity-aware design model called the 'Spoon Dial' aimed at making financial dashboards more accessible for neurodivergent users. The concept draws on spoon theory, using a 0–5 scale to represent a user's available mental energy at any given time. When capacity is low, the interface simplifies to show only the three most essential widgets, reducing cognitive overload through progressive disclosure. The implementation relies on a small set of CSS custom properties and a single state machine, making it relatively lightweight to build. The proposal challenges the density-first approach common in mainstream fintech design, which typically assumes users are operating at peak attention.