What delights me is that your rainbow has brown in it.
Orange sir
Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
21–30 of 79 posts
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#22All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#23All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors. Adjacent stuff like music are ostensibly getting simpler.
It makes me think that if they designed adult books today, they would be like children's books. One sentence in a big font and one image per page.
Doesn't have to be bad, but I worry we lose discipline and our cognitive abilities decline when everything is spoon fed.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#24All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
No, it reads like someone who appreciates why skeuomorphism was good in specific situations, and that this is one of them.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#25https://www.jonathansapps.com/
Someone recently suggesting this and first thought I came to my mind is prevailing advice is to not show kids screen as long as possible
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#26All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors. Adjacent stuff like music are ostensibly getting simpler. It makes me think that if they designed adult books today, they would be like children's books. One sentence in a big font and one image per page. Doesn't have to…
I see your point but the implied perspective of this take is that being an adult means consistently interacting with systems that are designed explicitly to be difficult to use. I, as an adult, appreciate interfaces designed to be simple and easy to use, not because I need it, but because it is efficient and respectful of my time. Accepting the status quo that systems are expected to be explicitly difficult to use (in a way that does not reflect domain complexity) is in my opinion learned helplessness and complicity. I won’t comment on the cultural observation about music, except to say that might be a practical constraint of content designed for mass appeal. If you want high brow and sophisticated taste you have to accept that your audience shrinks, as a matter of practicality.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#27All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors. Adjacent stuff like music are ostensibly getting simpler. It makes me think that if they designed adult books today, they would be like children's books. One sentence in a big font and one image per page. Doesn't have to…
I think it's more that people are designing things with the intention of never creating documentation. The analogy with books doesn't really work for me because of that. Books aren't user interfaces that are learned.
The main UI parts of books to learn are page numbers, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. They're not necessarily intuitive but they are pretty universal and standardized.
The reality is that people will use the things they use the fastest. And not having to learn how to use things means people will use them more.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#28To me, further highlights the extent to which all touchscreens are essentially "child-level" interfaces.
This isn't inherently bad, but does likely put a hard limit on the complexity (and dare I say, usefulness) of the tasks you can do with them.
If they get you to the complexity, fine (e.g. dialing a number to speak with a human) but also, if they're that repetitive, maybe you don't need a screen (less of this in cars, please)
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#29All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.
It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors. Adjacent stuff like music are ostensibly getting simpler. It makes me think that if they designed adult books today, they would be like children's books. One sentence in a big font and one image per page. Doesn't have to…
Big fonts are not for kids. They are for adults with worsening eyesight, which is considerable amount of population over 40. And I assure you there was parade of super simple popular music 20 years ago, 100 years ago or whenever.
Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
#30These principles are good for all ages. Similar to how designing for handicapped users is generally better for everyone (see Good Grips).
Generally yes, but sometimes no. Take for instance the requirement to have the fire alarms at toddler height in our local daycare.
How else are toddlers going to learn how fun a prank call is?