<!-- Source: Lumotia Master Brief — §12 Live User Sentiment -->

## 12. Live User Sentiment — What Neurodivergent Users Actually Say

### The abandon-shame cycle
The dominant emotional narrative across every neurodivergent community: download, dopamine hit, elaborate setup, miss a day, guilt, avoidance, abandonment, self-blame, repeat. The word "graveyard" appears in nearly every personal essay about ADHD and productivity tools. One user described deleting 47 apps and keeping three. Another wrote: "Twelve apps over three years. You find a new system. It's shiny and full of possibility. You spend three days setting it up instead of doing actual work. Then the dopamine wears off and the app becomes just another thing you're failing at."

### Top frustrations (ranked by frequency)
1. The abandon-shame cycle itself
2. Tools designed for neurotypical brains — "Every tool wanted me to decide where things go the moment I write them down. That's the one thing my brain is worst at."
3. Overwhelming complexity (Notion cited as the primary offender)
4. Subscription fatigue — crosses from annoyance into genuine financial harm for ADHD users
5. Decision fatigue from too many apps
6. Rigidity that punishes bad days
7. The "out of sight, out of mind" problem — passive apps that wait to be opened

### Emotional intensity
Language consistently involves shame ("another thing I'm failing at"), resignation ("I've lost count"), and liberation when users find the right framing ("I wasn't broken — I was working with tools designed for someone else's operating system"). Anger directed specifically at subscription billing: one Effecto review reads "Pretty ironic that it's an app supposed to be ADHD-friendly yet charges you for a service you don't use." A Wisey Trustpilot review states: "They are unscrupulous and taking advantage of people with ADHD who may be less organised."

### Demand signals for Lumotia's specific features
- **Voice-first capture** receives consistent praise wherever it appears — one user who deleted 47 apps kept a voice memo tool as one of three survivors.
- **Offline/local-first** positioning is an emerging differentiator; community responds positively to "your data stays with you."
- **One-time purchase preference** is acute: a Goblin Tools App Store reviewer wrote "The fact it isn't subscription-based is incredibly helpful — I know it's mine and can use it whenever I need, without having to worry about whether it's 'worth it' each month or if I'm going to forget to cancel."

### Most-requested features (ranked by community demand)
1. Instant zero-friction capture (voice input, brain dump)
2. Visual timelines over text lists
3. AI that decides and prioritises for you
4. Forgiveness mechanics (no shame spirals from missed tasks)
5. Radical simplicity
