Neurodivergent individuals, particularly those on the autism spectrum, often experience increased stress in everyday situations and may benefit from accessible digital support tools. This work presents the human-centered development and evaluation of a mobile application for stress self-assessment and management, involving neurodivergent users and caregivers. Interactive mock-ups were evaluated with 16 participants using the System Usability Scale (SUS), achieving a mean score of 81, indicating high perceived usability. A functional prototype was subsequently tested in a think-aloud usability study with four participants. Qualitative content analysis revealed key strengths in intuitive interaction, alongside challenges in navigation, interaction feedback, data visualization, and terminology. Participants also emphasized the need for enhanced personalization, accessibility features, and clearer visual communication. The results suggest that mobile applications can provide effective and accessible support for stress management in neurodivergent populations, while highlighting important design considerations for future development and real-world deployment.

Neurodivergent individuals, particularly those on the autism spectrum, often experience support-needs in activities of daily living. This is often due to sensory processing differences that challenge environmental comfort. While technology-based interventions show promise, requirement-driven and accessible solutions for private living settings remain scarce. This project developed a practical guideline that repurposes commercially available smart home technologies to support daily living, environmental comfort, and safety for autistic users and their caregivers. Methods included a literature and technology review focused on sensory stressors (e.g., temperature, noise, light, air quality, movement), synthesis of use cases from two prior human-centered, participatory projects, and iterative refinement via a focus group with experts ( N = 2) and an interview with an adult on the autism spectrum. Technologies were selected for interoperability within mainstream ecosystems and coverage across typical use cases. The resulting guide integrates theoretical foundations with actionable configurations in three domains: General safety (e.g., alarms), structuring daily life (e.g., schedules via voice assistants), and autism-specific supports (e.g., presence sensors). By leveraging off-the-shelf components, the approach reduces cost and barriers to adoption, enhances accessibility, and is suitable for technical novices. This resource aims to improve well-being and autonomy, mitigate caregiver burden, and foster autism-inclusive living environments.

People on the autism spectrum and other neurodivergent people may experience sensory-rich environments as distressing, while teachers and care professionals must often identify and respond to environmental discomfort with limited objective information. This study reports the human-centered requirement elicitation, prototype development, and quantitative pilot evaluation of an environmental-monitoring system that relies on rule-based thresholds. Across three case-study settings, 125 stakeholder participations informed the development and design of a smart sensor system measuring sound, light, temperature, and air quality. The subsequent pre–post pilot study was conducted at four Austrian and Italian centers from February to June 2026. In total, 42 clients or pupils and 26 teachers or care professionals participated in the evaluation measures of the pilot study. Post-study acceptance was positive: overall meCUE user experience scores ranged from 4.88 to 4.94 on a seven-point scale, and AttrakDiff overall attractiveness averaged 1.21 (SD = 1.06) on a scale from −3 to +3. The results support the usability and perceived value of the prototype to maintain supportive environmental conditions.