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Tool Cognitive Load

Category: Cognitive Transport · Since: v18.27.0 · Tier: All

Estimate the cognitive load a specific persona experiences on a page, broken down across 8 dimensions. Identifies the bottleneck dimension — whether the persona is overwhelmed by information density, visual complexity, too many choices, or something else.

Why This Matters

A page that's fine for a power-user might overwhelm an ADHD user. This tool quantifies exactly why — not just "it's too complex" but "the 53 choice points create decision fatigue at 0.37 load, and the animations create attention fragmentation at 0.50 load."

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
persona string Yes Persona name
informationDensity number (0-1) Yes Content density (0=sparse, 1=dense)
visualComplexity number (0-1) Yes Visual complexity (0=simple, 1=complex)
interactiveElements number Yes Number of interactive elements
textDensity number (0-1) Yes Text heaviness (0=minimal, 1=wall of text)
animationLevel number (0-1) Yes Animation/motion amount
choiceCount number Yes Number of decision points/options
navigationDepth number Yes Clicks needed to reach content

Example

Estimate cognitive load for an ADHD user on a page with high animation and 30 interactive elements

Response

{
  "persona": "cognitive-adhd",
  "totalLoad": 0.41,
  "overloaded": false,
  "bottleneck": "attention",
  "breakdown": {
    "information": 0.50,
    "visual": 0.50,
    "attention": 0.50,
    "decision": 0.37,
    "motor": 0.50,
    "text": 0.50,
    "memory": 0.15,
    "patience": 0.22
  },
  "recommendation": "cognitive-adhd can handle this page. Closest to overload on: attention."
}

The 8 Dimensions

Dimension What It Measures High For
Information Content density vs comprehension Low comprehension personas
Visual Visual complexity vs processing Low visual processing personas
Attention Animations vs attention capacity ADHD, easily distracted
Decision Choice count (Hick-Hyman) vs decision style Indecisive, satisficing
Motor Interactive elements vs motor precision Motor impairment, elderly
Text Text density vs text processing Dyslexia, low literacy
Memory Navigation depth vs working memory Low working memory
Patience Baseline impatience factor Impatient personas

Automatic Integration

When empathy_audit runs, cognitive load is automatically computed for each persona using page metrics extracted via extractPageMetrics(). You don't need to call this tool separately during empathy audits — it's included in the response as cognitiveLoad.

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