UX Design for Kids: Key Design Considerations

Now, let’s explore the characteristics of children belonging to various age groups, whose behaviors and physical and cognitive abilities differ significantly. It’s important to understand the key attributes of each individual age group.

• two through six years old—Children in this age group—who according to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development belong to the preoperational stage of cognitive development—typically include children in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade, who have the lowest levels of perception and understanding. Kids in this age group think primarily in symbols and visuals. As a result, they have a minimal vocabulary. Therefore, when you’re designing for an audience in this age group, it is essential that you use minimal text and instead rely mostly on symbols and visuals that instantly create a meaningful reference for kids.
• seven to nine years old—These children belong to the fully operational stage. They are capable of thinking logically and reasoning through various things in their mind. At this stage, children’s ability to understand what they read also develops. Their vocabulary also tends to expand and, gradually, greater understanding of more complex statements and words develops. But, for an audience at this stage, the use of symbols, icons, and imagery should still be the primary mode of communication. But there should be a relative increase in the use of textual content. For both the design of a site or an app and its content, there should be an emphasis on simplicity.
• nine to eleven years old—In this age group, children gradually tend to develop expertise in the use of touch screens and can easily comprehend common user-interface design patterns. At this stage, kids have a larger vocabulary and better reading comprehension and reasoning capabilities. While the use of icons, symbols, and imagery should still take priority for the visual elements of a user interface, you should depend less on these elements for more meaningful communications. You can also introduce simple, hierarchical elements to your designs for older kids, who can now handle multiple concepts simultaneously.

Addressing Children’s Needs Through Design

Now, that you have an overview of kids specific design needs and requirements, let’s look at some time-tested approaches to designing for children.

• instant gratification—Because kids tend to have little patience for anything that blocks their progress along the way, your designs should create a sense of instant gratification to help them keep engaged. For kids’ games, this philosophy has resulted in the creation of multiple steps with in-game rewards at each step.
• meaningful signs and symbols—Kids tend to be quite literal, so they would likely think a hamburger menu icon actually refers to a hamburger. Always use icons that have a literal meaning that kids can easily understand.
• storytelling—Since children’s understanding and reasoning are still developing, you need to bridge the gaps in their comprehension through storytelling—events unfold as the story progress.
• appreciation and encouragement—Kids lack the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. They also lack the motivation to stick to anything for very long. This is why, instead of creating a user interface that dwells on one thing for a prolonged period of time, you should break the content into small chunks. Also, engage kids through gamified elements such as badges of appreciation and encouraging gifts that await them at various milestones.

Conclusion

Always remember that kids of different ages have different abilities and needs. Your design solutions must address those needs. You can keep kids engaged with your applications through instant gratification, the use of meaningful symbols, storytelling, and rewards. Ensure that your design patterns accommodate the limited understanding of children while also encouraging them to stay on board.