Welcome!

Focus Ex is a digital reading tool, first and foremost for people suffering from ADHD. It is a tool that helps the user access written online content more easily. It filters out distractions, breaks down the text, and changes the font style to a personalized setting. With all these adjustments it helps with the user’s focus and understanding of the content.

The different parts of this tool are the result of a one-year-long research. Different functions have been developed after understanding the phenomenon of ADHD and learning about its effects on reading quality. The customizable typeface has also been created as a helping tool with reading problems created by this condition. Its strength lies in the customizable typeface.

From a technical point of view, it is a browser extension that can be turned on and off easily. At the moment it is designed for desktop and mobile use but there are plans for it to expand to other devices.

Focus Ex

About the project

This project serves as my thesis topic and diploma work for my master’s degree at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest (MOME).
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The project contains a special font designed specifically to help focus. The proportions of the letters are designed for the best readability. The special Focus weight is an optical size that can serve as a highlighter when using the generative qualities of the variable letters.

3D picture of a phone running the Focus Ex mobile app

3D picture of a browser window running the Focus Ex desktop browser extension

3D image of a phone being the frame of the video

Mobile devices

Nowadays most people read a lot on different handheld devices so I created a mobile app that can interact with websites through a browser app.

Desktop devices

The extension is designed first and foremost for desktop browsers. Check out this video to see some of the features in action.

Focus Sans Regular

@ Replace this text with your own to see how your text looks with this typeface. Try it!

Focus Sans Expanded

@ Replace this text with your own to see how your text looks with this typeface. Try it!

Focus Sans Focus

@ Replace this text with your own to see how your text looks with this typeface. Try it!

Focus Sans typeface weights and widths matrix

Typeface

The Focus Sans typeface was created specifically for this project. The proportions and shape of the letters were designed for the comfort of reading. The letter-spacing is larger than the regular spacing and while it makes the reading speed slower, it makes the text more legible and helps with comprehension.

The Focus weight of the letter is of an atypical optical size and practically works as optical zoom.

You can test the Focus mode feature by hovering over the text on the right side of the screen.
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Adjust the text size using the buttons below.

Low Medium High

Are you annoyed by the many ads, pictures and noisy, unnecesarry contents on some webpage. Well, may people are, so FocusEx have a tool to clean these out. Try out the clean function to see what happens.

Clean

Kill caps is for those cases when there is more capital letters then a word. These cases can be really hard to read.

With this function, you easely can transform them to normal sentence case.

killCAPS

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. ADHD also affects many adults. Symptoms of ADHD include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought).

An estimated 8.4 percent of children and 2.5 percent of adults have ADHD.1,2 ADHD is often first identified in school-aged children when it leads to disruption in the classroom or problems with schoolwork. It can also affect adults. It is more common among boys than girls.
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Symptoms and DiagnosisMany ADHD symptoms, such as high activity levels, difficulty remaining still for long periods of time and limited attention spans, are common to young children in general. The difference in children with ADHD is that their hyperactivity and inattention are noticeably greater than expected for their age and cause distress and/or problems functioning at home, at school or with friends.ADHD is diagnosed as one of three types: inattentive type, hyperactive/impulsive type or combined type. A diagnosis is based on the symptoms that have occurred over the past six months.Inattentive type – six (or five for people over 17 years) of the following symptoms occur frequently:Doesn’t pay close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in school or job tasks.Has problems staying focused on tasks or activities, such as during lectures, conversations or long reading.Does not seem to listen when spoken to (i.e., seems to be elsewhere).Does not follow through on instructions and doesn’t complete schoolwork, chores or job duties (may start tasks but quickly loses focus).Has problems organizing tasks and work (for instance, does not manage time well; has messy, disorganized work; misses deadlines).Avoids or dislikes tasks that require sustained mental effort, such as preparing reports and completing forms.Often loses things needed for tasks or daily life, such as school papers, books, keys, wallet, cell phone and eyeglasses.Is easily distracted.Forgets daily tasks, such as doing chores and running errands. Older teens and adults may forget to return phone calls, pay bills and keep appointments.

Sign up if you want to take part of the testing. Feel free to contact us and please donate to help this project becoming a solution for many people!