Subpages

• The Stimpunks Design Language
• Collaborative Niche Construction
• Neurodivergent Design Principles
• Neurodivergent Environment Diagnostics
• Neurodivergent Design as a Discipline
• The Neurodivergent Design Standard Stack
• The Neurodivergent Design Handbook
• The Neurodivergent Design Index
• The Obstacles to Neurodiversity-Affirming Design
• Diagnosing Neurodivergent System Friction
• The Neurodivergent Friction Map
• The Neurodivergent Friction → Pattern Table
• The Neurodivergent Friction → Recipe Map
• The Neurodivergent Design System Diagram
• The Neurodivergent Design Field Model
• Neurodivergent Design as an Emerging Design Science
• Theoretical Foundations of Neurodivergent Design
• Neurodivergent Design as a Paradigm Shift
• The Neurodivergent Design Methodology
• The Neurodivergent Design Playbook
• Neurodivergent Design Case Studies
• The Stimpunks Design System
• The Stimpunks Quickstart Guide
• Stimpunks Design Documentation
• The Neurodivergent Design Framework
• The Neurodivergent Design Specification
• The Neurodivergent Design Standards
• Neurodivergent Design Certification
• The Neurodivergent Environment Audit
• The Neurodivergent Design Checklist
• Neurodiversity-Affirming Care
• Relational Design
• Participation Without Presence
• 🧠 Livable Worlds Checklist: A Practical Audit for Building Environments You Can Exist In
• From Checklists to Patterns

The Stimpunks Design Stack

Stimpunks connects philosophy, lived experience, and design into a practical system for building environments where different bodyminds can thrive.

PHILOSOPHY
Our Lens • Structural Pillars
https://stimpunks.org/our-lens/
https://stimpunks.org/structural-pillars/

        ↓

FRAMEWORK
The Stimpunks Framework
https://stimpunks.org/framework/

        ↓

DESIGN METHOD
ARLES — The Stimpunks Design Method
https://stimpunks.org/design/

        ↓

DESIGN LANGUAGE
Shared vocabulary for describing experience
https://stimpunks.org/design/language/

        ↓

PATTERN LANGUAGE
Recurring structures of neurodivergent life
https://stimpunks.org/patterns/

        ↓

EXPERIENCES
What people feel
https://stimpunks.org/experiences/

        ↓

PATTERN LIBRARY
What explains those experiences
Core patterns like Monotropism, Spiky Profiles, Sensory Load, and Processing Time
https://stimpunks.org/patterns/library/

        ↓

PATTERN RECIPES
What actions work
Practical applications for classrooms, meetings, and communities
https://stimpunks.org/patterns/recipes/

        ↓

ENVIRONMENTS
Where those actions reshape systems
Classrooms • Workplaces • Communities
https://stimpunks.org/environments/

• Start with an experience.
• Follow the pattern.
• Try a recipe.
• Redesign the environment.

The method moves from lived experience to design. We attend to real experience, recognize recurring patterns, develop language for those patterns, experiment with environments, and share what works so the system can evolve.

Patterns reveal how neurodivergent life actually works. Design turns those insights into environments that support human dignity.

This stack turns lived experience into practical design. Philosophy explains the values. Patterns describe reality. Recipes redesign environments.

We study the patterns of neurodivergent life so we can design environments where different minds can thrive.

🧱 The ARLES Stack

Stimpunks is organized as a living design stack: from attention and relationships, through lived experience and environments, to systems that shape everyday life.

Flow:

Attention
  ↓
Relational (incl. regulation)
  ↓
Lived Experience
  ↓
Environments
  ↓
Systems

🧭 The Core Model of Stimpunks

Stimpunks is grounded in three connected ideas about how neurodivergent life works: language, relationships, and ecology.

Together, they explain how experience is formed—and how it can be redesigned.

🗣 Language Makes Experience Visible

Language is not a single layer of the stack. It operates across all layers, shaping how experience is understood, shared, and transformed.

• Attention — how minds focus and process
• Relational — communication and co-regulation
• Lived Experience — sensory and emotional realities
• Environments — conditions shaping participation
• Systems — structures and norms

Glossary · Pattern Language · Canon · Design Language

🤝 Relationships Make Regulation Possible

Regulation is not just an individual skill. It is a relational and environmental process.

• co-regulation with others
• sensory and environmental conditions
• predictability and pacing
• tools and supports

Systems that demand self-regulation without support create masking, stress, and burnout.

Co-Regulation · Regulation First · Sensory Load · Regulation Spaces

🌱 Experience Is Ecological

Experience emerges from the interaction between body, attention, environment, and relationships.

• sensory conditions
• social context
• time and pacing
• tools and supports
• access to regulation and rest

When environments are misaligned, friction accumulates into stress and burnout. When they are well-designed, participation and wellbeing increase.

Ecology · Neurodivergent Life · Environment Fit · Burnout Threshold

Together:

• Language makes experience visible
• Relationships make regulation possible
• Ecology determines what experience becomes

The ARLES stack builds on this foundation, providing a way to move from understanding experience to redesigning environments and systems.

Language → Relational → Ecology
        ↓
      ARLES
        ↓
     Design → Systems Change
    

The ARLES Ladder

The stack becomes a ladder for diagnosis and design.

      Systems
        ↑
   Environments
        ↑
Lived Experience
        ↑
   Relational
        ↑
     Attention

🗣 Language Across the Stack

Language is not a single layer of the ARLES stack. It operates across all layers, shaping how experience is understood, shared, and transformed.

Language gives names to:

• Attention — how different minds focus and process
• Relational — communication, co-regulation, and interaction
• Lived Experience — sensory, emotional, and cognitive realities
• Environments — conditions that shape participation
• Systems — structures, norms, and institutions

Without shared language, experience remains invisible or misunderstood. With shared language, patterns become legible, design becomes possible, and systems can change.

Glossary · Pattern Language · Canon · Design Language

ARLES describes how neurodivergent life is structured.
Language makes it visible and shareable.

💧 Regulation Is Relational

Regulation is often treated as an individual skill. In reality, it is a relational and environmental process.

People regulate through:

• other people (co-regulation)
• environments (sensory conditions)
• structures (predictability and pacing)
• tools and supports

When systems demand self-regulation without providing relational support, they create pressure, masking, and eventual burnout.

Relational design shifts the focus from:

• self-regulation → co-regulation
• control → support
• compliance → consent
• performance → presence

Co-Regulation · Regulation First · Sensory Load · Regulation Spaces

Regulation is not something people do alone.
It is something environments and relationships make possible.

🌱 Experience Is Ecological

Experience does not exist inside a person alone. It emerges from the interaction between body, attention, environment, and relationships.

What someone feels, perceives, and can do is shaped by:

• sensory conditions (light, sound, texture)
• social context (expectations, safety, trust)
• time and pacing (speed, transitions, duration)
• tools and supports
• access to regulation and rest

When environments are misaligned, friction accumulates. Over time, this becomes stress, masking, and burnout.

When environments are well-designed, experience changes:

• attention stabilizes
• regulation becomes possible
• participation increases
• relationships strengthen

Ecology · Neurodivergent Life · Environment Fit · Burnout Threshold · Energy Ecology

Experience is not a personal trait.
It is an ecological outcome.

The Five Layers of the Stimpunks Method

The Stimpunks Method translates ARLES into practice. It is iterative and ecological.

These five questions form a continuous loop for understanding, designing, and changing systems.

Language is not a separate layer of the stack. It operates across all layers, making experience visible, shareable, and actionable.

ARLES = structure of experience

Language = structure of meaning

ARLES describes how neurodivergent life is structured; language makes it visible and shareable.

Step 1 — Attention

Start with how a person thinks.

• What captures attention?
• What disrupts it?
• What supports flow?

Explore:

• Pattern 01 — Monotropism
• Pattern 16 — Cognitive Load Windows
• Attention Ecology

Step 2 — Relational (including regulation)

Design for interaction and co-regulation.

• How do people communicate?
• Where does regulation happen?
• What creates safety or pressure?

Explore:

• Pattern 23 — Co-Regulation
• Pattern 30 — Communication Bandwidth
• Pattern 32 — Consent Over Compliance
• Pattern 29 — Parallel Presence

Step 3 — Lived Experience

Name the experience based on lived experience.

• Does the system have the right words?
• Are behaviors being misinterpreted?
• Is meaning shared?

Explore:

• Glossary
• Glossary Map
• Pattern Language

Step 4 — Environment

Change the conditions.

• What creates friction?
• What enables participation?

Explore:

• Design Recipes
• Neurodivergent Environments
• Cavendish Space

Step 5 — Systems

Scale change.

• What needs to become standard?
• What policies must shift?

Explore:

• Design Standards
• Design Audit
• Design Framework

🧭 The Five Questions of Neurodivergent Design

These five questions form a continuous loop for understanding, designing, and changing systems.

🧠 Attention

How does this mind work?

Monotropism · Cognitive Load Windows

🤝 Relational

How do people connect and regulate?

Co-Regulation · Communication Bandwidth

🌱 Lived Experience

What is actually happening in lived experience?

Experiences · Everyday Realities

🏕 Environment

What conditions are shaping this experience?

Environments · Design Recipes

⚙️ Systems

What structures must change to support this?

Standards · Audit

Attention → Relational → Experience → Environment → Systems → Repeat

🧭 The Stimpunks Design Method: ARLES

A field guide for understanding and changing neurodivergent environments.

---

The Five Questions

Attention
How does this mind work?
→ Where does attention flow or break?

Relational
How do people connect and regulate?
→ Is there safety, consent, and co-regulation?

Lived Experience
What is actually happening?
→ What does this feel like in real conditions?

Environment
What conditions are shaping this?
→ What can be changed right now?

Systems
What structures must change?
→ What would prevent this from happening again?

Better questions change what we design—and what becomes possible.

---

The Flow

Attention → Relational (incl. Regulation) → Lived Experience → Environment → Systems → Repeat

---

The Practice Loop

1. Notice friction
2. Name the pattern
3. Apply a design move
4. Adjust the environment
5. Change the system

The Practice Loop is Design Questioning in action.

---

Use This When

• Someone is overwhelmed
• A system isn’t working
• A space feels unsafe
• Participation breaks down
• Burnout is happening

---

Core Principle

If it’s not working, it’s not the person.
It’s the environment, the relationships, or the system.

---

Start Here

• Patterns → /patterns/library/
• Recipes → /patterns/recipes/
• Environments → /environments/
• Design → /design/

---

Stimpunks.org
Designing a world where different minds are expected.

⚡ Use This Method

When something isn’t working, move through these questions.

1. Attention
   How does this mind work?
   → Where does attention flow or break?
2. Relational
   How do people connect and regulate?
   → Is there co-regulation, or pressure to perform?
3. Lived Experience
   What is actually happening?
   → What does it feel like in real conditions?
4. Environment
   What conditions are shaping this?
   → What can be changed right now?
5. Systems
   What structures must change?
   → What would prevent this from happening again?

Then:

• Identify friction
• Select patterns
• Apply design recipes
• Adapt the environment
• Scale through systems

Friction → Patterns → Design → Environment → Systems → Iterate

The Design Flow

Stimpunks design is a continuous loop of diagnosis, pattern selection, and redesign.

Experience → Friction → Patterns → Design → Environment → Outcomes → Iterate

Integrated Flow:

Attention → Relational → Experience → Environment → Systems
        ↘                              ↑
          → Friction → Patterns → Recipes →

Summary:
Stimpunks moves from understanding attention and relationships to redesigning environments and systems.

Design Questioning → The Practice Loop

Design questioning is how we learn to see differently.

Instead of asking what’s wrong with a person, we ask what is happening, what patterns are present, and what conditions are shaping the situation.

The Practice Loop is design questioning in action.

The Shift

Design questioning moves us from:

• fixing people → understanding environments
• judging behavior → recognizing patterns
• isolated problems → relational systems

It replaces assumptions with inquiry.

From Questions to Practice

What This Makes Possible

When we ask better questions:

• behavior becomes understandable
• patterns become visible
• environments become changeable
• systems become accountable

We stop asking:

“What’s wrong with this person?”

And start asking:

“What is happening here—and what needs to change?”

The Core Principle

If it’s not working, it’s not the person.

It’s the environment, the relationships, or the system.

In Practice

Start anywhere.

Follow the loop:

1. Notice friction
2. Name the pattern
3. Apply a design move
4. Adjust the environment
5. Change the system

Then repeat.

Iterate to reduce friction and grow understanding.

Explore the Universe Map

Stimpunks is a connected ecosystem of experiences, patterns, language, design methods, recipes, environments, and systems change.

If you want to see how the major parts of the project fit together, start with the universe map.

Explore the Stimpunks Universe Map →

• Start with experience → recognition and lived reality
• Follow the patterns → recurring structures of neurodivergent life
• Move into design → recipes and environments
• See the bigger system → framework, philosophy, and systems change

Explore the Stimpunks Design System

The Stimpunks Design Method is not just a philosophy. It is a practical system made of patterns and recipes that help people design environments where neurodivergent minds can thrive.

Design Language

The shared vocabulary used to describe how environments interact with neurodivergent minds.

Explore the Design Language →

Core Patterns

The recurring structures of neurodivergent life, attention, and environment.

• Monotropism
• Spiky Profiles
• Sensory Load
• Processing Time

View All Patterns →

Pattern Recipes

Practical ways to apply these patterns when designing classrooms, meetings, and communities.

• Designing a Neurodivergent Classroom
• Designing Inclusive Meetings
• Preventing Autistic Burnout

Browse All Recipes →

Patterns describe how the world works. Recipes show how to redesign it.

The Stimpunks Design System

The Stimpunks Design Method turns patterns of neurodivergent life into practical design tools.

• Reality
  Neurodivergent people navigating environments that were not built for them.
• Core Patterns
  Monotropism,
  Spiky Profiles,
  Sensory Load,
  Processing Time.
• Design Language
  A shared vocabulary for describing how environments interact with neurodivergent minds.
  Explore the Design Language →
• Design Method
  A framework for redesigning environments using these patterns.
• Pattern Recipes
  Practical applications for classrooms, meetings, workplaces, and communities.
  Browse Recipes →
• Designed Environments
  Spaces that support regulation, attention, dignity, and participation.

Understand patterns. Design environments. Enable dignity.

The Stimpunks Design Ladder

Stimpunks moves from lived experience to better environments by naming patterns, building language, and applying design.

Understand patterns. Build language. Apply design. Change environments.

Pattern Language

The Stimpunks Design Method uses a pattern language to describe the recurring structures of neurodivergent life and to design environments that support different minds.

Patterns capture realities that appear again and again across classrooms, workplaces, social environments, and institutions. Once these patterns are visible, we can design spaces and systems that work with human cognition rather than against it.

Patterns
↓
Recipes
↓
Environments

Patterns describe recurring structures of neurodivergent life. Recipes combine patterns to redesign environments. Environments are the spaces and systems built from those designs.

Core Patterns

• Monotropism
• Spiky Profiles
• Sensory Load
• Processing Time

These patterns form the foundation of the Core Patterns of Neurodivergent Life.

Pattern Recipes

Recipes show how multiple patterns can be combined to redesign real environments.

• Designing a Neurodivergent Classroom
• Designing Inclusive Meetings
• Preventing Autistic Burnout

Explore the full system in A Pattern Language for Neurodivergent Life →

Patterns help us understand the world. Design helps us change it.

Experiences: What People Actually Feel

Many people discover Stimpunks through experiences they are trying to understand.

Experiences are signals from the nervous system about how environments are working — or failing.

• Sensory Overload
• Processing Time
• Deep Attention
• Social Exhaustion
• Autistic Burnout

Experiences are the starting point. Patterns help explain them.

Environments: Where Design Happens

Patterns become meaningful when they shape real environments.

Stimpunks uses pattern thinking to redesign the environments where people live, learn, work, and collaborate.

• Neurodivergent Classrooms
• Neurodivergent Workplaces
• Inclusive Meetings
• Learning Spaces
• Cavendish Space

Designing better environments is how patterns turn into real change.

The Stimpunks Stack

The Stimpunks ecosystem connects lived experience, pattern recognition, design methods, and systems change. Each layer builds on the one before it, helping people move from recognizing their experience to redesigning environments and institutions.

This stack shows how Stimpunks moves from recognizing lived experience to building environments and systems that support neurodivergent people.

The Stimpunks Knowledge System

Stimpunks connects lived experience, patterns, design methods, environments, and systems change into one framework.

This stack shows how Stimpunks moves from lived experience to pattern recognition, from patterns to design, and from design to environments and systems change.

Recognize the experience. Follow the pattern. Apply the recipe. Redesign the environment. Change the system.

The Neurodivergent Design Flywheel

Stimpunks is not a one-way framework. It is a learning loop. Experiences reveal patterns, patterns shape design, design changes environments, and those environments create new knowledge about what helps people thrive.

Lived Experience
↓
Pattern Recognition
↓
Design Response
↓
Better Environments
↓
Participation & Flourishing
↓
Shared Learning
↓
Refined Patterns
↓
Better Design

How the Flywheel Works

• Lived Experience reveals where friction, overload, burnout, or deep attention actually happen.
• Pattern Recognition helps explain why those experiences repeat across different people and places.
• Design Response turns those patterns into practical changes through principles, recipes, and collaborative niche construction.
• Better Environments reduce friction and support more kinds of minds.
• Participation & Flourishing create conditions where people can contribute more fully and sustainably.
• Shared Learning helps communities refine what works, document it, and improve the framework over time.

This is how Stimpunks grows: not by treating knowledge as fixed, but by letting lived experience, design, and community learning continually improve each other.

Better environments create better participation. Better participation creates better knowledge. Better knowledge creates better design.

Use the Design Method

Once you understand the Stimpunks Design Method, there are three ways to keep going.

• Learn the language → The Stimpunks Design Language
• Explore the patterns → Pattern Library
• Apply the patterns → Pattern Recipes

These three layers turn the method into a practical design system.

How the Stimpunks Ecosystem Works

Stimpunks is not just a collection of articles. It is a design ecosystem that helps people move from lived experience to better environments and systems. The site is organized so readers can recognize what they are experiencing, learn the patterns behind it, and apply those patterns to redesign spaces, practices, and institutions.

This ecosystem unfolds across seven connected layers.

1. Experiences

People often begin with a feeling or situation they cannot yet explain. Experience pages help people recognize what they are living through.

• Sensory overload
• Deep attention
• Processing time
• Social exhaustion

2. Patterns

Patterns describe recurring structures of neurodivergent life. Instead of treating differences as isolated problems, patterns reveal how many experiences follow recognizable shapes.

• Monotropism
• Spiky Profiles
• Sensory Load
• Processing Time

3. Language

Language allows people to name patterns they previously experienced without words. Our glossary and design language give people shared vocabulary for understanding neurodivergent life.

4. Method (ARLES)

The Stimpunks design method organizes these insights using five layers: Attention, Regulation, Language, Environment, and Systems (ARLES). This framework helps people analyze why environments work for some minds and fail for others.

• Attention — how minds focus and learn
• Relational (incl. Regulation) — how relationships environments affect nervous systems
• Lived Experience — how we name experiences and patterns
• Environment — how spaces shape behavior
• Systems — how institutions structure opportunity and constraint

5. Recipes

Patterns become powerful when they combine. Pattern recipes show how to apply multiple patterns to real-world situations.

• Designing a Neurodivergent Classroom
• Designing Inclusive Meetings
• Preventing Autistic Burnout

6. Environments

Recipes help people design real environments where neurodivergent people can thrive.

• Learning spaces
• Workplaces
• Meetings
• Community spaces
• Cavendish Space

7. Systems

The outer layer examines the systems that shape these environments. Many barriers faced by neurodivergent people are not individual problems but the result of institutions designed around narrow assumptions about how minds should work.

• Broken Systems, Not Broken People
• The Myth of the “Average User”
• Consent Beats Compliance
• The Myth of Meritocracy

By moving through these layers — from experience to systems — the Stimpunks ecosystem helps people understand neurodivergent life and design environments where different kinds of minds can flourish.

                         SYSTEMS
                     (institutions)

                          ↑
                          │
                      ENVIRONMENTS
                      (real spaces)

                          ↑
                          │
                        DESIGN
                (methods & recipes)

                          ↑
                          │
                       PATTERNS
           (structures of neurodivergent life)

                          ↑
                          │
                      EXPERIENCES
                    (lived reality)

                    RHIZOME (Ideas)
        Non-hierarchical knowledge connections

          Glossary
             │
   ┌─────────┼─────────┐
   │         │         │
Patterns   Philosophy  Experiences
   │         │         │
   └──────┬──┴───┬─────┘
          │      │
          ▼      ▼

       PATTERN LANGUAGE
    (shared structures of life)


            ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓


                    MYCELIUM (Practice)
        Living networks that move resources

          Recipes
             │
   ┌─────────┼─────────┐
   │         │         │
Environments Toolkit  Coping
   │         │         │
   └─────────┼─────────┘
             │
             ▼

         CIVILIZATION
     Institutions • Culture
     Education • Work • Care

The Stimpunks Design Method redesigns systems by starting with attention and regulation, building shared language, creating human-centered environments, and then changing institutions.