Product

Reduced stimulation by default

Most apps show everything at once. Autistic Mirror shows the bare minimum first. Whoever needs more context expands it. This default is not a stripped-down mode, it is the consequence of a neurological observation.

Why reduced is the default

Autistic processing often filters sensory and visual input differently. Sensory gating, the unconscious mechanism that dampens irrelevant input early in processing, runs less automatically in many autistic people. More signals reach conscious processing. What disappears into the background in neurotypical processing stays in the foreground here.

On top of that sits predictive coding. The brain constantly precomputes what will arrive next and forwards only the deviation as a signal. According to this model, autistic processing weights the actual sensory input more heavily and smooths over deviations less generously. A page that suddenly unfolds twenty sections creates twenty deviations, each of them asking to be processed.

Together this can lead to sensory processing fatigue, a state in which the cognitive resources spent on filtering are no longer available for the actual content. A user who has spent three minutes parsing pricing cards often has no energy left for the question that brought them here in the first place.

Where you can see this in the app

Reduced stimulation is not one setting in one place. It is the baseline of several surfaces at once.

Home page. The home page opens compact: the opening, the perspectives as tabs, a short pricing line, a short note on the sources. The comparison with generic AI, how it works, co-occurring conditions, the story, trust and the other sections all exist, but they are collapsed and reachable via "Show more".

Pricing page. Three plans side by side, compact: Reflect, Mirror, Deep. Price and core idea. Questions and answers, the plan comparison and the transparency block are collapsed and reachable via "Show more".

Menu and footer. In the reduced state, the top menu shows only home, log in, create account and pricing. The footer shows only the mandatory information. A click on "More" reveals the other areas.

Chat. The rating buttons under answers step back, the typing effect can be switched off, and example questions in an empty chat can be hidden. The chat page header is permanently compact; rarely used actions sit in a menu.

Settings, reduced stimulation section. This is where the default is refined. A main switch with "On" and "Off" sets a preset. On top of that come eight detail switches with "Auto", "On" and "Off". "Auto" follows the main switch, "On" or "Off" overrides it for that one detail. Under each switch, plain language says what actually changes.

What the eight detail switches do

So nobody has to guess what sits behind the options, here is the short form, as it also appears in the app:

Typing effect in chat. Answers appear as a finished block, without the text building up word by word.

Auto-scroll. When a new answer arrives, the view jumps straight to the bottom, without smooth movement.

Feedback buttons collapsed. The three rating buttons under answers only appear when you click them.

Hide suggestions in an empty chat. An empty chat shows no example questions, only the input field.

Quota only when little is left. The display of remaining messages only appears when less than a fifth is left.

Reduce menu and footer. Menu and footer start compact across all sessions.

Keep home page compact. "Off" shows the full home page every time it opens.

Keep pricing page compact. "Off" shows all pricing details every time it opens.

What actually changes when you expand

The expanded mode is not a premium feature and not an upsell. It is the same information, just unfolded. Whoever chooses it sees the full navigation, the full pricing details and the full home page.

Important for prediction: the switch happens exactly where you trigger it. Clicking "Show more" first opens a small confirmation that explains what is about to happen. This is not a friction layer, it is protection against accidental sensory flood. Whoever closes it with "Stay reduced" is not asked again in that session for up to 24 hours.

Transparency does not mean sensory flood

A new app has to build trust, and trust gets built from explanation. Autistic Mirror therefore explains its architecture, its sources, its limits, its safety layers, its business model. That is a lot.

That is exactly why two views exist. The default view is reduced, because trust also gets built from protection: from the observation that the app knows what it can ask of its users and what it cannot. The expanded view is available on demand for anyone who wants all details at a glance.

Transparency and sensory protection do not exclude each other. They alternate, steered by the person who is reading right now.

Stance over marketing

Reduced stimulation is not a feature in Autistic Mirror. It is the baseline. Nobody has to pay for it. Nobody has to walk through onboarding to find it. It is there the moment the page loads.

It is the only honest starting point for an app built for autistic people. Expansion is optional, protection is the default.

Autistic Mirror is an AI chat that explains autistic neurology individually, applied to your situation. Mechanism over advice. Explanation over correction. The app is not a medical device and does not replace medical or therapeutic treatment.