What it is
Four short tools a client does on their phone between sessions, all free, all keyed to one eight-character code:
- What Matters (five minutes): a 25-card values sort. Top seven ranked, each marked satisfied, not satisfied, or working on it. Produces a written report and the code.
- Bull’s Eye (five minutes, then weekly): the Bull’s Eye Values Survey structure (Lundgren et al., 2012), personalized to the client’s own seven values. A dart per value for how close they’re living to it, the barriers in the way, and one committed action for the week. A check-in email a week later asks whether they did it and invites a re-throw, so the board shows movement.
- The Matrix (six minutes): the ACT Matrix as a card sort. Away moves the client claims, the hooks that precede them, what each costs, and one toward move written as an if-then plan.
- Flex (four minutes): a 36-card sort across the six ACT processes, giving a six-sided picture and one process to practice, with two exercises.
Each report is written by a language model from the client’s placements and nothing else. The clinician view (toolkit.humanequation.live/clinician) shows everything a client has done under their code, with their email address hidden.
What it isn’t
It isn’t a clinical record, and nothing in it is verified. Only Bull’s Eye rests on a validated instrument, and even that is adapted; What Matters, the Matrix sort, and Flex are structured reflection with face validity and no norms. Nothing on the site is monitored by anyone, ever. It doesn’t screen for risk, it can’t see who is using it, and it is meant for adults. Treat everything it shows you as the client’s self-report, which is what it is.
Introducing it in session
Do the values sort first; the other three need the code it produces. Something like: “There’s a free five-minute card sort I’d like you to do before next time. It’ll email you a report and a code. If you give me the code, I can see what you sorted and we can work from it; if you’d rather keep it to yourself, that works too.” One tool at a time. Bull’s Eye is the natural weekly assignment; the Matrix fits a client who keeps doing the thing they don’t want to do; Flex fits a client who wants a map of the work.
When a client shares their code, have the consent conversation out loud and note it in your record: what you’ll be able to see, that you don’t see it in real time, that they can stop sharing by simply not doing more, and that the site isn’t you.
Reading the view
- The board. Numbers are the client’s value ranks. A dart near the center means “living it fully”; the edge means “nowhere near.” Dashed outlines are the previous throw, so you can see movement at a glance. The table under it is every throw.
- Moves and outcomes. “Done,” “Partly,” and “Not this time” are the client’s own answers to the check-in. “Not yet reported” usually means they haven’t opened the email, not that they failed.
- Barriers are chosen from a fixed deck plus free text. In ACT terms, most are fusion or avoidance wearing everyday clothes.
- The Matrix reads left to right, away to toward, and top to bottom, behavior to inner experience. The plan sentence is the client’s if-then.
- Flex is a relative picture from one sort. “Most room to move” is where to start, not a deficit score. It will look different next month, which is the point.
Check-ins
The check-ins are the standard screeners (PHQ-9, GAD-7, WHO-5, PC-PTSD-5, PCL-5, AUDIT, AAQ-II, ASRS, SWLS, BRS), scored as published with the usual cutoffs drawn on the trend line. Taken under a client’s code they appear in your view with history, which makes a weekly PHQ-9 or GAD-7 a workable measurement-based-care loop. A PHQ-9 item 9 answered above “not at all” is flagged in red in your view; the client saw the crisis lines on their result page, and nothing else happens automatically. If you assign check-ins, decide with the client what you’ll do with a flag and say it out loud.
Free text and safety
Clients can type in their own words in a few places: barriers, custom moves, and toward moves. Nobody reads those fields in real time. When you open the clinician view, read them; if a client has written something that would worry you in a message, treat it the way you’d treat that message. The site tells clients it isn’t monitored and points them to 988, and that has to be true on your end too: don’t let a client believe the tool is a line to you.
Records and privacy
This is a consumer self-help tool run by The Human Equation, not a covered entity, and it isn’t HIPAA-covered. You decide whether any of it goes in your record; if you want something there, copy what you need. Anyone holding a code can open that client’s pages, so a code is a bearer token: don’t put it in an email subject line or a shared calendar, and ask clients not to post theirs. Your client list on the dashboard lives only in the browser you added it in. Clients can have everything deleted by replying to any email the site sent them.
Cadence that seems to work
Values sort once, then again in three to six months. Bull’s Eye weekly, ideally the day before session so the throw is fresh. Matrix and Flex once, then again when something has shifted. None of this is required; the tools work in any order after the values sort.
Where it comes from, and what it can claim
What Matters was designed by Dr. Martine J. RoBards, a neuropsychologist, and rebuilt by her son, Michael RoBards, LCSW. Bull’s Eye adapts Lundgren, Luoma, Dahl, Strosahl and Melin (2012). The Matrix follows Polk and Schoendorff. Flex follows the hexaflex. Every tool is built on evidence-based methods; the package itself has no outcome evidence yet. Say “built on,” never “shown to.” If you run it with clients and want to compare notes, reply to any email from the site.