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Stay on track · DoppiNow feature

Gentle nudge

The gentle nudge is the small, calm reminder DoppiNow shows on an unrelated page after the grace period. It shows your goal, where you were, where you are now and your melting combo, with buttons to go back, mark the page, park it or take a break. Then it shrinks to a small orb.

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Key facts

Category
Stay on track
Where to find it
Settings → Reminders: sensitivity, grace period (20 seconds), remind again (every 3 minutes) and the page wave. The card itself has no off switch.
Availability
In the DoppiNow Chrome extension: a 7-day free trial, then $3.99/month or $29.99/year. Desktop Chrome 120 or newer (other Chromium browsers such as Edge or Brave may also work).
Status
Available now.

How it works

  1. After a short grace period

    On an unrelated page, a small card appears in the bottom-right corner after 20 seconds (by default).

  2. It shows the route

    Your goal, “You were here 3 min ago”, your time on this page and your combo, melting live.

  3. One tap back

    “Back to where you were” (+25 XP), or “💭 Park it”, “It’s related” and “5 min break”.

  4. Then it shrinks

    After 25 seconds, or with Esc, it becomes a small orb. Click the orb to reopen the card.

All the details

  1. After the grace period on an unrelated page, a card appears in the bottom-right corner. It sits above the page (in the browser's top layer) and is sealed off so pages can't restyle it.

  2. The card shows:

    • a ring with the minutes left (focus minutes in an open-ended session)
    • your goal
    • a route: "You were here 3 min ago" with that site's icon, then "2 min on this page"
    • your combo, melting live
    • your next tiny step, if you set some

  3. Buttons: "Back to where you were", or "Close this tab" if nothing related was open yet (the last tab of a window gets a new tab first, so the window stays open). While the 2-minute comeback window is open and the session still pays a comeback bonus, the button shows +25 XP; once the window closes, the card drops it. Then "💭 Park it", "It's related" ("Yes, it's related" when DoppiNow is less sure) and "5 min break".

  4. The words stay kind. When DoppiNow is less sure the page is unrelated (below 85%), every reminder asks "A quick check: Is this page part of your goal?". Otherwise the first reminder says "A small reminder: You can pick up where you left off." and, from the second reminder on, "You can start again: Whenever you are ready, your spot is waiting."

  5. After 25 seconds (or 8 seconds after you stop hovering), or with the minimize button (or Esc while the card has keyboard focus), the card shrinks to an orb. The orb shows your minutes away, and its ring fills toward the next reminder. Hover shows your goal, and a click reopens the card. It disappears once you're back on task.

  6. In a full-screen player, the card appears inside the player when the page allows it. If a bare video element fills the screen, the card waits until full screen ends.

Settings: Settings → Reminders: sensitivity, grace period (20 seconds), remind again (every 3 minutes) and the page wave. The card itself has no off switch.

Why it helps with ADHD

Goal reminders at the moment of distraction helped students stay on task in a 6-week field study, although many found them annoying (Lyngs et al. 2020). In a phone study, hard lockouts cut use more than warnings but "caused more frustration and pressure" (Kim et al. 2019), so a gentle approach trades some strength for comfort. In the one sec study, a message on its own "was not effective". What helped was the pause plus a way to back out (Grüning et al. 2023), which is why the card pairs the reminder with a one-tap way back.

No study has tested DoppiNow itself. DoppiNow is a productivity tool, not a treatment for ADHD.

Sources

  1. Lyngs, U., Lukoff, K., Slovak, P., Seymour, W., Webb, H., Jirotka, M., Zhao, J., Van Kleek, M., & Shadbolt, N. (2020). "I just want to hack myself to not get distracted": Evaluating design interventions for self-control on Facebook. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–15. doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376672
  2. Kim, J., Jung, H., Ko, M., & Lee, U. (2019). GoalKeeper: Exploring interaction lockout mechanisms for regulating smartphone use. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 3(1), 1–29. doi.org/10.1145/3314403
  3. Grüning, D. J., Riedel, F., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2023). Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(8), e2213114120. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213114120

Gentle nudge: common questions

Is the reminder a pop-up I have to close?

No. It sits in a corner, never over the whole page, and it shrinks to a small orb on its own after 25 seconds.

Does the reminder show over full-screen video?

When the player allows it, yes. Otherwise it waits until you leave full screen.

Will DoppiNow shame me for drifting?

No. The words are kind on purpose, and coming back soon after a reminder earns +25 XP.

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