Compare child and adult availability

In recent years we have carefully studied child-centered design. The main reason for the study is to create awareness for the target group of children's designers. Adult designers are not able to design games, web pages, and applications for kids without the participation of targeted age groups.

Of course, the experience of adults is complex, and we always add colors and dolls, while simplifying the interaction process, but these do not make the products designed for children become usable and interesting.

We have also seen the impact of child-centered design. Part of that is making the digital products designed for children easier to use, so let's look carefully at the usability and why it affects the user experience.

Unlike adults, children use the media often have more different goals. Adults use the web to access information and communicate with others. We open new pages, like search engines, content portals, shopping sites and a wide range of social media platforms. On the other hand, children use the internet for entertainment.

Although these goals are very different in nature, children and adults have a common interest in browsing the web. That is: Find something. For usability and web design, what the user wants to find is secondary.

In any case, as well as for any target age group - including adults - the availability of web pages determines whether users can achieve their goals. This feeling of success has a huge impact on the overall user experience of a particular website. Because children are more sensitive than adults.

In general, adults have more internet experience. This helps them to avoid detours on the web pages and to find information that at a glance can hardly be found. Children often lack this experience. If a web page is not available - which means that important content is not easily found - children will give up looking for and leaving. No matter how high-quality your content is, most children will not endure it if it takes a lot of effort to find it.

We already know that there is a big difference between children and adults. We also understand that children have many different goals when they surf the Internet. But how does it affect good usability for children and adults? Does it mean that usability always varies when designing products for children?

Jacob Nielsen conducted many user tests on children ages 3 to 12 and compared his findings with what is known about adult usability. The conclusion is a series of important pieces about good usability.

Let's take a look at the sections that have the same application of child usability and adult usability.

Initial reaction

As mentioned above, children and adults want to discover something when they surf the Web. However, this "what" is very different, how to discover is also very different. The initial impression of the page determines whether the user is looking forward to discovering the center content on the page.

Nelson said, "Both adults and children respond directly to web pages, and some people become excited and want to dig deeper and find something interesting, yet others want to immediately click the back button and look at something else. "

The first impression affects not only the user's initial reaction, but also the entire user experience. A positive initial impression gives the user plenty of motivation and excitement, while making it easier for them to forgive the design mistakes that follow.

Good design

When designing web pages - no matter what the target user base - it is important to adhere to the fundamentals of good design, such as legibility, consistency, beauty, clarity, and feedback.

Nelson lets children participate in testing well-designed, widely-available sites like Amazon, Yahoo! and Google. He found out that "kids do not need a special children's interface for general tasks such as browsing, searching and buying books." A simple, user-friendly website for adults is also available for children.

Of course not all situations apply. The user interface needs to be different, especially when the user's goals are different, or when designing a web page for young children with limited reading ability.

3. Standardization

For children and adults, websites are a framework for getting them what they really want. Users do not want to spend any unnecessary time learning how to use a website, or to understand the structure of the navigation. They just want to find the content they want in the fastest time and the easiest way.

In particular, adults have had certain expectations and habits when browsing websites - in short, they have gained a lot of experience on other websites. If you can not meet these expectations, then you are forcing your users to reposition and spend time and energy learning new ways.

Less general experience of children, so expect less. However, once they have mastered the use of the website, you want to make sure that the entire interaction is continuous and that they can rely on it to accomplish the tasks throughout the site.

Control

Nelson found that "both children and adults want to be in control of the web experience, and they want to have the option of stopping or repeating an activity whenever they want, and at this time having the option of using help and search tools."

Make sure the user is in control. This includes any form of navigation and anything that might happen on your page.

Use words and product categories that are meaningful to the target age group to avoid confusion for users. Allow users to return step by step, or at any time can return to the original state. If your site includes games, audio or video, you want to allow users to pause, replay, and skip on any medium.

If users feel they have lost control, they feel puzzled and even disappointed. These feelings create a negative user experience while leaving the user (1) to leave the page and (2) not to come back.

5. Technical interface

With the ever-changing web technology, it offers new ways for your web pages to deliver a great user experience. However, in fact, the new technology that can be implemented does not mean that the user can fully grasp it.

Nielsen explains, "Users do not want to deal with things they do not understand, and technical problems are considered the most annoying and intolerable in terms of the problems encountered by users of various age groups in their online experience."

In particular, children often use non-updated equipment passed down from their parents or siblings. These devices may lack plug-ins, lack audio output, or have limited network connectivity. Make sure you consider the technical limitations that any user may encounter and offer other options.

At the same time, try to minimize the failure rate and avoid the wrong message as much as possible.

Obviously, this is not always possible. In that case, make sure you provide clear and informative feedback to your users to help them quickly recover from the error.

After studying the same core features of child usability and adult usability, it is time to look carefully at their differences. Yes, there are many differences between them. After all, children and adults vary widely in many ways, such as their physical characteristics, social habits, and cognitive development.

When designing web pages and applications for children, it is important to target best availability. Whether a web page is available - children intuitively know what to do and where to click - all determine what kind of expansion your target age group can discover.

In particular, kids do not have as much internet experience. If they do not know immediately what they are going to find and where to find it, they will not spend time looking carefully at your pages. So, make sure your web pages or applications are well-made in all aspects-and these are specific and clear to children-with the goal of immersing children in your content.

In a series of user tests, Jacob Nelson discovered many applicable usability rules for both children and adults. At the same time he also found some very different places. These differences include user goals, physical limitations, exploratory behavior, rolling behavior and reading behavior, as well as limited awareness of the commercial content.

Let's take a look at these differences in turn:

User target

In the 21st century, children and adults alike can get what they need online. However, their purpose of using the Internet is quite different.

Adults are mainly used to gain access to different information, go shopping, or stay in touch with family, friends and business acquaintances. You can almost call this a mature driver - or at least the intrinsic motivation that comes from meeting some of the more advanced ends. Adults are often very focused and goal-oriented when surfing the internet.

On the other hand, the reason children are not online is not that serious and serious. Their main goal is entertainment. However, they also look for content that has certain characteristics, such as games, jokes, or information about their idols.

The difference in goals has a huge impact on the usability of the web page. For example, using animations and sound effects on a web page is a distraction to adults. However, for children, they are immersed in the entertainment of the webpage, and these effects are also the most popular among children.

Physiological restrictions

The next one with "different user goals" is "Physiological Restrictions," and children are also limited by their limited physical development and technological understanding.

Adults already know how to use output devices such as keyboards or mice. So typing or clicking on a smaller target will not directly affect the availability of a website.

User testing shows that most children type using the method of looking at the keyboard typing. They think this experience is difficult because they find it hard to find the correct letter, which slows down their typing speed considerably. At the same time, it creates frustration and tests their patience.

Using the mouse to interact with the page is also a reason. Although some children have more internet experience than others, children generally have limited fine motor skills. This can cause them to miss a goal or accidentally hit other nearby objects.

Most children also have very little patience for slow loading times. If the web page does not have direct feedback on their clicks, they will point again and again - and without realizing they may have clicked on a new page.

You want to make sure that the area you click is large enough and the load time is optimized to ensure smooth navigation.

3. Explore behavior

Children are born curious. They are very active in exploring the world around them and have almost no worries about breaking something or doing wrong. This feature also applies to their online behavior.

Adults have acquired some cognitive patterns about websites - they come up with an idea that "something should be done" or look forward to opening a webpage.

However, children do not have much experience browsing the web. Even if they browse, they often lack the ability to summarize and apply what they have learned to other pages.

Since children do not have a clear goal orientation as adults do, they do not mind messing around the page - exploring the different things that are available on the page. Nielsen described the behavior as "clicking on different items on the screen franticly in hopes of getting feedback."

However, the fact that children lack the systematicness to surf the Web - they do not mind being involved in a long period of experimentation and mistakes - does not mean that it is a good thing. In fact, children are easily lost after accidentally clicking on an unexpected link. If they leave a webpage but do not intend to do so, most children lack the experience of returning to the webpage.

Different scrolling and reading behavior

When it comes to scrolling and reading, children have significantly different levels of hierarchy than adults.

For adults, reading is not a problem at all. Of course, it is important to adhere to good textual design guidelines to ensure its readability - but generally speaking, it's fine to rely on the user's own reading to understand the interface. At the same time, scrolling through the web is also an acceptable way.

For children, scrolling and reading seriously affect their interaction with the webpage. Especially children do not read - because they do not know how to read. From the age of 6, children begin to learn how to read, but remember that their reading ability is still very limited. Even if children have good reading skills, they have problems with quick access to text - they tend to read word by word.

Minimize the text content and support for a large number of visual content, which allows children to more easily understand and accept. Also, make sure you use simple words and avoid large chunks of text.

When it comes to children's rolling behavior, Nielsen's research shows that online experience is the most important factor. Children with more internet experience have relatively more scrolling behavior. However, children generally roll less often than adults. Be sure to keep important content above the fold-over panel and provide children with clear, visual information to trigger their scrolling behavior when needed.

No commercial awareness

Last but not least, children and adults have entirely different perspectives on business content.

Adults are accustomed to commercial content on the Web - and they can easily ignore it, even to some extent. This phenomenon is called "advertising blind spots." In addition, adults are conscious of the concept of advertising, and they are able to consciously distinguish between commercial and non-commercial content.

This is a tremendous difficulty for children. They can easily think of the content on the page as advertised as actual content and are more inclined to click on it. At the same time, advertisements are generally lifelike and are designed in bright colors - these precisely attract the attention of children.

When children click on ads that divert their attention from the web, they can easily get lost. Again, they may not be able to return due to lack of experience and page sensitivity.

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