Fovea
Speed reading built for ADHD brains, not just fast ones
Named after the fovea centralis, the part of your retina responsible for sharp central vision. That is exactly where the reader keeps your gaze.
An RSVP speed reading web app built for people with ADHD, grounded in peer-reviewed research and designed around how ADHD brains actually fail at reading.
Context
A personal problem I kept failing to solve with willpower. Started after finding a 2023 PubMed study showing RSVP improves ADHD reading comprehension by 13%. Runs in the browser and installs as a PWA on iPad, iPhone, or desktop. No App Store required.
The Problem
Most people with ADHD don't have a reading speed problem. They have a staying-on-the-page problem.
- Eyes drift and the mind wanders mid-sentence, even on content they care about.
- Re-reading the same paragraph four times, then closing the book feeling worse.
- Existing speed reading apps are built for people who already read fine and want to go faster.
- No app was built for people who struggle to stay on the page at all.
Phase 1 shipped. Phase 2 in development.
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ORP-based RSVP engine with smart pacing and peripheral context -
PDF, EPUB, URL import, and plain text paste -
Chapter detection, sidebar navigation, offline via PWA -
Recover button, Hyperfocus Mode, Streak Freezes, Pomodoro -
Phase 2: body doubling rooms, ambient soundscapes, AI summaries, stats
Product Approach
ADHD reading fails at the eye movement level, not the comprehension level. RSVP eliminates saccades entirely.
Every feature is justified by a specific ADHD failure mode, not a generic UX pattern.
No AI summaries in Phase 1. That would defeat the point of reading.
Research Basis
+13% Comprehension for ADHD
RSVP vs standard text. PubMed, 2023. Neurotypical readers showed no improvement.
80/20 ORP Finding
80% of reading time spent locating the ORP. 20% on processing meaning. RSVP collapses the 80% to zero.
Body Doubling (Phase 2)
Well-documented ADHD technique. Silent presence of others measurably improves focus.
Why RSVP
The research that shaped every product decision.
Saccades are the rapid eye movements your eyes make while reading. Every saccade is an opportunity for attention to drift. RSVP eliminates them entirely by flashing words one at a time in a fixed center position.
Key Finding · PubMed 2023
ADHD adults comprehended 13% better with RSVP than with normal text. Neurotypical readers showed no improvement or a slight decline at speed. The benefit is specific to the population with the attention architecture problem.
What the research changed in the product
The Reading Engine
ORP + Smart Pacing
- ORP letter sits at a fixed screen position, highlighted in coral red. Gaze never moves.
- Longer words get more display time. Commas add a brief pause. Sentence-ending punctuation gets longer. Paragraph breaks get the longest, with a visual divider.
- 100 to 1,200 WPM via slider. Previous and next words faint at the periphery to reduce the anxiety of feeling lost mid-sentence.
Reading Modes
- Chunk mode: 2 or 3 words at once for users who comprehend better with phrases than single words.
- Bionic Reading: first half of every word bolded, helping the eye anchor faster on each flash.
- Text-to-speech via Web Speech API: word mode or sentence mode, with the currently spoken word highlighted in real time. No external service, no cost.
Content Import
- PDF parsed client-side with pdfjs-dist. Rule-based cleaning strips page numbers, headers, footers, TOC, and bibliography before the reader touches it. An AI pass catches anything left.
- EPUB via epubjs. Chapters from native spine. Front and back matter stripped automatically.
- URL import via Mozilla Readability: Substack, Medium, any article. Strips navigation, ads, and subscribe prompts.
ADHD Features
Each one addresses a specific ADHD failure mode, not a generic UX pattern.
Recover Button
Large, always-visible. Press R and the reader rewinds 10 seconds with no animation, no judgment, no friction. Zoning out is inevitable. The question is whether recovering is easy enough that you don't close the app.
Hyperfocus Mode
Full screen, no UI. Optionally prompts Do Not Disturb before starting. When the only thing on screen is the word, there is nothing to context-switch to.
Streak Freezes
Daily streak that auto-protects on missed days using earned freeze tokens (one per week of consistent reading). Prevents the "I already broke it, forget it" spiral that derails every ADHD habit attempt.
Pomodoro + Smart Length
Built-in 25-minute sessions with 5-minute breaks. The app also tracks how long users typically read before they bail and suggests sessions of that length plus 10%. Specific beats open-ended for ADHD.
Stop asking what features to add. Start asking which failure modes to design around.
That reframe changed everything. The Recover button, the Streak Freezes, the Low-stim mode: none of them came from a feature list. They came from asking why ADHD users quit reading apps.
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