Design Thinking for Little Finger

This article was translated by Jiangnan University Graduate School of Design Lu child, the original author: Andrew Smyk, URL: https: //medium.com/user-experience-researche/ad2a19ed3816 for children is very significant issues, such as foreign kidscreen website design Or organization, I hope more domestic designers can focus on children's applications and create interesting and educational applications for them

Designing a kid for an interface or application is not just a matter of simplifying the interface or making the big button, which requires us to think about the interaction model and user experience from a child's perspective. Children are often curious about the world and willing to explore. They will click on any content on the screen to search for and discover content in the interface.

Let the child remember: press or click

I've been observing the use of tablets and other touch-screen devices by my kids and their friends. Children mainly click on the content, draw on the screen with your finger or copy, drag or slide the page. Gently taping is the most natural interaction gesture children use subconsciously. Children pointing to something to their guardian are a way of communicating with the world. Click on the user interface surface is a simple point. Children want something, they little interface.

The design for children requires the user interface to reflect their input.

Interaction design needs to consider using the onPress event instead of the onRealease event. The child's natural gesture is to press continuously after clicking instead of releasing after clicking.

Avoid using double-click. Design time to consider the interaction of time, the use of double-click (click - click) is a need to learn the interactive gestures. The interaction the child uses is click (press, release), click (press, release).

Piano game

If it looks like a button, it's best to have a button.

Children expect something to happen after every click or button press. If nothing happens, children will press harder and they will use something else, such as a toy, to press what they feel like a button. So they may ruin the screen. A friend of mine told me a story about his daughter while playing a piano game application, and the piano keyboard is part of the visual design of the user interface. The piano keyboard for this game just has no functional decorative design. The little girl stood on the tablet, trying to play the piano with her feet and weight.

Protect your interface: Use navigation design

Instead of exploring or interacting with one of the major problems children use on their tablet, they mishandled the user interface and removed the action history. Whether this is a clickable banner or a modeled window that says "Rate this app" or "Do you want to continue?" This usually happens by accidental navigation and pop-ups, which can lead to jumping out of the current application or website. Swipe gestures that move a child to another area should also be avoided unless it is done consciously by the child.

Toca Tea Party uses a simple text link to prevent accidental access. Once pressed, the user can see a modal window with a specific set of text links. For children, this modal window is a break during the game, the big eye-catching "X" in the window would like to make people click, click to return to the main interface.

Toca Boca Tea Party and modal windows

More images, less text

Less readable text is designed, though children do not read but need help and guidance. Netflix's Kids site has a great navigation design example, which takes into account children's thoughts and behaviors when designing so that children can do it without the help of their parents. The main navigation is from a variety of video characters in the role.

Children can recognize their favorite cartoon image, click and press the cartoon image, the child can see this cartoon image of the video. Another example is the My Little Pony website, with arrows and characters on the navigation.

Netflix website

My pony show page

Encouragement and guidance

Gaming-style interactions encourage children to try again to participate or replay the game. Tip The next step is to ensure your child can continue to do their job and prevent them from feeling frustrated because they did not respond or did not progress.

Repeat behavior

Give your child a simple repetitive way. Whether it is a button that can be pressed or clicked over and over, or a video playback. Repetitive behaviors increase children's learning experience and exploration. Eliminating repetitive behaviors shortens the child's interaction experience, which ultimately results in a poor user experience and limits the replay value of applications and websites.

The value of replay is important, so give your child a button to click over and over again. The button that sounds when pressed may be clicked many times before causing repeated sounds. The application keeps a short sound loop or limits its repeat loop until the initial interactive sound stops. ABC Discovery Games uses a simple "stop / start" sound to manage clicks. After pressing a few buttons, randomly change the sound playback, in order to encourage repeated clicks.

ABC adventure game

ABC adventure game

Advanced plan

Respond to multi-touch and collaborative interactions. Multi-touch creates a wider interface, children's hands vary in size, and they may hold tablets of different sizes. Using multi-finger touch on the interface is part of the way children discover and explore things. Crocodile bathing game allows the child to start a starting point with a finger, and then continue to draw to an end point. Frustration can be caused when the interface does not respond to multi-touch inputs. Children rarely play games alone, allowing multi-touch to give kids a chance to work together.

Crocodile bathing game

Refused to use accelerated devices as part of user interface and application interaction. The tablet is too heavy for the child's little hand, and there is always the danger that something will fall when the child holds the tablet. Tilting or turning the device may cause accidents. Keep limited interaction gestures. With proper planning and implementation, gestures can be well understood from the touch device to the desktop.

Daughter playing tablet scene

in conclusion

Designing and building user interfaces and user experiences do more than just simplify or make buttons bigger. The way children explore and interact with the interface requires us to think about scenarios where children have a positive user experience. Think of presses as clicks, taking into account two (good and not so good) repeated behaviors. Let children use simple navigation, the complexity of navigation left to parents to use.