Children’s UX: Usability Issues in Designing for Young Demographics

Photo from the University of Michigan Health Lab.

“When creating content, be empathetic above all else. Try to live the lives of your audience." – Rand Fishkin

To paraphrase UX strategist Tanya Junell, designing a good children’s app is more than just dumbing down adult concepts – it's about evaluating the user experience of playful, interactive learning experiences with children.

For this blog post, I'm going to focus on the difference between younger children (ages 5 through 8) and older children (ages 9 through 12). So often, product designers, developers, and UX strategists group them together, which leads to less effective products.

While children under the age of 13 may share similar social, economic, and demographic experiences (like growing up under the same federal policies and laws), they don't all operate on the same developmental level, emotionally, morally, or physically. Thus, app developers may consider creating pathways for alternate app experiences based on the age of the user.

Here are some key take-aways:

1. Younger children often experience difficulties and frustration during registration processes of apps/websites, because they don't appreciate and realize their importance. (Sometimes, children will quit using an app because of log-in issues.)

2. Younger children have more brain plasticity – that's what makes them so lively! They may more quickly learn how to use and adapt to new technologies, and so the on-boarding process could go faster, in addition to containing more complicated material. Younger children can also more quickly learn new languages, new instruments, new sports, and almost everything more quickly than adults; the possibilities for knowledge acquisition through educational apps are endless.

3. Older children are more likely to get into trouble on apps. This should be self-explanatory for any parent.

4. When not distracted by advertisements or social media sites, children of all ages will use apps to learn. Children often experience all-consuming interests in certain subjects, like dinosaurs or birds, and will use apps, websites, and similar outlets to discover and explore their passions. (Remember when you were a kid and spent hours and hours reading about something you found neat, like butterflies or trees? Technologies can empower children to fully investigate a subject, and so they're not limited to the books they find in libraries, television programs at home, or what their parents know.)

5. Surprising fact! Because the brains of children have more neuroplasticity, they are actually able to recover from screen exposure more quickly than adults. This is promising for the potential to shape and optimize the digital environment, specifically to allow the human brain to more fully absorb knowledge (Mednick and Ehrman 2002).