You may be wondering, what exactly is neurodivergent-informed design? In this two-part series, I explain neurodivergent-informed design through a framework of sensory ergonomics and cognitive ergonomics. When most people hear the word ergonomics, they think of sit/stand desks or a well-formed handle — the physical fit between a body and the built environment. But ergonomics is a broader question: how well does this environment support the people using it?

Sensory ergonomics asks how the environment fits the nervous system — how light, sound, texture, temperature, and spatial information are processed, and how that processing manifests physiologically. Cognitive ergonomics asks how the environment fits the mind — how spatial organization, visual cues, and sequencing can reduce cognitive fatigue and free up mental resources for the things that actually matter. Together, they form a framework for neurodivergent-informed design. While this post focuses on sensory ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics is up next.

The science, and what it doesn’t tell us

There’s a growing family of design frameworks — biophilic, salutogenic, neurodesign, trauma-informed — that share a basic premise: built environments influence perception, perception influences physiology, and physiology shapes how we think, feel, and connect. These frameworks are well-evidenced and genuinely powerful. Natural light regulates circadian rhythms. Organic forms reduce physiological stress. Acoustic comfort affects cognitive performance. Sensory ergonomics draws on all of this — integrating it into the design process as foundational, not incidental.

But these findings describe the average nervous system. And while the average is a useful starting point, it’s not a finished design.

Every nervous system sits somewhere on a wide spectrum of sensory sensitivity. Some of us are hypersensitive — experiencing light, sound, texture, and smell more acutely than the norm. Others are hyposensitive — needing greater input to feel grounded. Many of us are both, depending on the day, the task, or where we are in a hormonal cycle. And some nervous systems diverge more significantly from the average — what we mean when we talk about neurodivergence.

Neurodivergent-informed design doesn’t set aside the established science. It asks how we can apply that science to a broader range of nervous system responses, rather than assuming every nervous system will react the same way.

Reading behavior as sensory data

The most useful thing I do with clients isn’t discovering what they like. It’s uncovering how they function best.

Take the person who works better in a coffee shop than a library. Their brain needs ambient sensory input to stay regulated. In a stripped-down environment, it goes looking for stimulation and finds it in distraction. The coffee shop’s information-rich background gives that seeking impulse somewhere to land — and suddenly the foreground task becomes possible. That’s not a personal quirk. It’s sensory ergonomics data.

I gather this kind of data by asking clients to reflect on lived experience rather than preferences:

Think of the last time you felt truly at ease — weightless, comfortable, restored. Where were you? Was it warm or cool, bright or dim, quiet or lively? What about the last time you experienced an energized, focused flow state?

Those answers reveal far more than any style quiz.

designing for range

Our nervous systems aren’t static. They shift across a day, a hormonal cycle, a season, a health flare. What supports focus on a high-energy Tuesday morning may be overwhelming on a low-spoon Friday afternoon — and this is true for everyone, not just people who identify as neurodivergent. The same is true of shared spaces — a setting that restores one person may overwhelm another.

Standard design advice optimizes for one state. Neurodivergent-informed design — and sensory ergonomics more broadly — considers the full spectrum of individual, cyclical, and contextual needs. The solutions it reaches for — layered daylighting control, movable furniture, zones with different sensory registers — turn out to serve everyone better. Not because they were designed for the average, but because they were designed for range, with enough variety that the space can meet people where they are.

What this isn’t

Neurodivergent-informed design isn’t calm minimalism, a phone booth in the corner, or a checklist of accommodations applied after the real design is done.

It’s a practice of listening, observing, and shaping environments that work with people, not against them — one that starts with the established science and asks how we apply it to the full range of how people actually live. When we get it right, space stops being something we wrestle with and starts being something that holds us.

Sensory ergonomics is one half of what makes neurodivergent-informed design so effective. The other half is cognitive ergonomics — how thoughtful spatial organization can reduce the low-level cognitive friction that quietly drains us, aiding our executive function and freeing up mental resources for the things that matter. If physical ergonomics fits the environment to the body, and sensory ergonomics fits it to the nervous system, cognitive ergonomics fits it to the mind. That’s the subject of the next post. If you want to catch it when it lands, subscribe below. No noise, just the next idea when it’s ready.