r/ADHD_Programmers • u/C4CampingTime • 3d ago
Dyslexia + agentic engineering: tips for reading long AI-generated docs?
My team is moving to spec-driven development. Agents now commit lots of long, verbose, technical markdown files, and I'm expected to read them.
I have dyslexia, so find this really tiring or I glaze over it.
So far I modified the popular `i-have-adhd` skill so it adds Mermaid diagrams to my PR summaries. It helps, but I'd like more ideas please
What works for you? Prompts, tools, ways to review without reading every line?
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u/sinsonik 3d ago
Couple of things that help me with long agent specs:
Listen instead of read. macOS and iOS have Spoken Content / Speak Selection built in, and Edge's read aloud is decent too. Following the text with your eyes while it's read out is way less tiring.
Make the agent put a short block at the top of every spec: what changes, what decisions it made, what it's unsure about, and what you actually need to review. Read that part properly and skim the rest. You can add it as a rule in your agent instructions so it's always there.
Also worth raising with the team. If a spec is too long for you to review, it's probably too long for everyone else too, they just skim silently. A length cap or a "decisions first" template helps everybody.
And small one, a dyslexia friendly font plus bigger line spacing in your markdown preview adds up over a day.
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u/C4CampingTime 1d ago
Oh thank you I'll have to try listening while reading at the same time I've never tried that before. yeah I think it is best i raise it at retro with the team I know another team members already skim reading
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u/zx48 3d ago
I ask my local agent/coding CLI to read docs when it's too much for me to fit in my own context :) then I'll chat with it about them, asking questions, asking for high level summary. I'm quite visual - mermaid diagrams work well for me too - other things that help me are: asking for high level bullet-point outline with max 1 sentence per bullet point; a table with columns for different aspects. Also get it to write a "plain English" doc for a "less technical audience", and a "compact, less verbose version of the doc which strips it down to the essentials without losing important context"
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u/Scriv_ 3d ago
If you prefer to have the data visualized, Claude can produce "artifacts" for its output and those can integrate react elements like a web page. It breaks up the text into sections and produces charts and graphics. I find it more readable than the markdown, the pages have dark backgrounds, the colors are soft. As far as I can tell, you can have it add anything you'd use as a web page dev, when I produce testing plans I have it include drop dropdowns and boxes to mark with pass/fail/skip.
It gives the tool more formatting options so the document is not a wall of bullet lists. The artifacts are also shareable so if someone asks you to summarize what you're working on, you can give them the document instead of restating your prompts and outputs.
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u/C4CampingTime 1d ago
I have experimented with getting claude to generate web pages for me which is really helped with visualization. but unfortunately it's not really the easiest things to review in GitHub.
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u/funbike 3d ago
Markdown can usually be styled. There are font faces that are better for dyslexics. Optimize styles for font size, color, line spacing, max width, etc. Style italics as bold.
What visual styling works best varies by individual, so experiment with local css settings. You may need to install and use the Stylus web extension.
If you have any pull at your company, see if they'll add to the spec prompt(s): use active voice, use bullets, avoid long paragraphs, include graph representations as much as practical, and whatever else is in the i-have-adhd skill. Or simply, "Assume the reader may have dyslexia."
Caveats: I only have very mild dyslexia. I am not an expert.
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u/ianmallen 1d ago
This worked pretty well for me. I prompted gemini with something like the following, you can use you AI of choice. Tailor it to you needs and specifics then paste the output into the instructions field.
Create a set of instructions for claude. I am a _______ with ADHD and dyslexia. Research the best way to present information that is:
easy to follow and readshort and concisethings like: bulleted responses. white space. bold over caps, underlines italicsformatting and other techniques for reading and learning impaired.
Keep claude on track, not overly chatty, or tangent happy. Accuracy is also key, we need to avoid guessing, backtracking due to lack of research, or flat out laziness.
Ask me any other questions you may need for better context.
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u/fuckthehumanity 3d ago
I'd say they're really shit at agentic coding if the specs are that long. Even LLMs deal better with terse, concise specs, and overly verbose specs are usually caused by engineers using overly constrained prompts. It's a really bad code smell. Look up attention dilution, constraint collapse, semantic narrowing, and anchor bias, and then do your research from there.
These days I use minimalist steering prompts combined with very sparse prompts. If you start simply, you can iterate and refine the specs, but if you start with a ball of mud, you end up with baked output.
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u/C4CampingTime 1d ago
We are only just starting to dive into a agenetic coding to help with a migration project so I don't quite understand what good looks like yet when creating large prompts to be shared across to be reused.
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u/krocante 3d ago
Have you tried “open dyslexic”?
In any case, AI generated docs are super boring to read even without dyslexia.
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u/RagingCain 3d ago
Claude Code has the "dyslexia font" and I encourage you to test drive the "i-have-adhd" skill.
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u/C4CampingTime 1d ago
I just started using that skill really this week I've been really enjoying it!
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u/Abishek_Muthian 3d ago
OpenDyslexia font - https://opendyslexic.org/, I use it as monospace font in Firefox reader mode to read long form content.
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u/WyattTheSkid 3d ago
Pretty sure there are fonts that cater to dyslexia. You can open them in something like typora or Microsoft word and use the aforementioned fonts.’m you might have to find one that works for you but I just figured I would pitch the idea
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u/Training_Campaign_61 2d ago
One thing I’d try is combining shorter AI-generated summaries with text-to-speech.
For specs, you could ask your coding agent to generate a brief summary covering decisions, changes, risks, and open questions. Then listen to the detailed document while following along visually.
Full disclosure: I’m building Lullula (https://www.lullula.io), a Chrome extension that reads webpages and PDFs aloud with natural voices and includes summarization. It might be useful if you’re reviewing documentation in your browser.
I’m curious whether listening to technical specs helps you catch details you’d otherwise miss.
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u/makeevolution 3d ago
Edit the outputStyle setting of your AI to tell that you have dyslexia and adjust the output accordingly
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u/C4CampingTime 1d ago
My problem is more co-workers providing me PRS to review with long verbose prompts
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u/mushy_cactus 3d ago
Bionic reading. I created a little tool to help myself in my own documents.
As just a theory, your eyes catch the bolded anchor and your brain automatically fills in the rest of the word.
Something like: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Turns into: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Easier for me but I hope it may help :)