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Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

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Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#41

Post by shaneos »

hluska wrote: post #3

I parent completely differently than most, but this top three really gets me: - Text does not actually provide guidance to a large percentage of your user base as they can’t read it How do kids learn to read without exposure? - Text takes up valuable space that could be used for better graphics or aesthetically pleasing empty space But again, how do you teach kids to read? - Text is visually unattractive and off-putt…

Author here. Not every app needs to be focused on teaching kids to read. When my 3 year old was using the app, putting words on the icons was meaningless, and a sign that I needed to put more effort into communicating visually. Older kids can handle more text, but I found that the app could achieve it's primary functions without it, and there is a beauty in simplicity.

Of course I read with my children every day, and they are now both voracious consumers of real world books. I encourage you to do the same. I also included features in Kidz Fun Art that help kids practice their hand writing and math problem solving. However, trying to have every app solve every need for every child (e.g. reading in this case), just leads to an ugly, messy interface that is off putting to everyone. Add lightness - take things away that are not needed.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#42

Post by sudoshred »

myaccountonhn wrote: post #37
sudoshred wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (i…

Yeah, I don't really see the point in difficulty for difficulty's sake. But sometimes there is inherit difficulty: democracy requires us to be informed, and distilling complex topics to a 30 second short might not give the nuance a topic enough; exercise requires us to move, there is no magic pay-to-win. Studies indicate that tech literacy is dropping, what does that entail for those moments where the more user respe…

I don’t have a comprehensive answer to your question. I agree that “user-friendly” is often a euphemism for “non-technical” or “low code”. I don’t think that supposition is fair, but it is not escapable as an individual. That being said to the extent that the functionality available is useful regardless of the user’s expertise, I think that is valuable. Granted, you will never avoid inherent complexity, for example the task of being an informed citizen does not become easier with better tools, but the inefficiency can be reduced. The user still must participate, however the unnecessary impediments can be removed. I think the value here is not in reducing complexity, but in removing un-needed complexity so that essential complexity can be studied more efficiently. I appreciate your point that “studies have shown…” and that may be correct, however anecdotally studies rarely are relevant to the specific circumstances discussed, and when I hear that phrase I immediately discount the following advice as generic and ill-considered. Authority does not imbue value, and a study is not inherently valid in any other context. I think the most pressing challenge is that the sources with the resources required to publish their perspectives are, rarely, if ever, acting in the interest of their audience… they have an agenda. Realistically speaking, even if complex systems were made easier to use, the vast majority of people who could benefit from adopting them would choose not to do so simply because of their own lack of awareness of the “why” or justification to do so. Usability is necessary but not sufficient. Improving efficiency is only possible when the need for that improvement is firmly appreciated, which in IT is rare.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#43

Post by sandspar »

_9ptr wrote: post #30
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This daycare heard about the Marshmallow Test and decided to one-up it with the "What A Tempting Fire Alarm (Oh Wouldn't It Be Fun?)" test.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#44

Post by sandspar »

justonceokay wrote: post #10
preordained wrote: post #6

Delightfulness? I'm seeing some indication "delightness" may be a word (can't say 100%)...but it seems a poor substitution for IMO the natural version of it

It’s a “pun” on the phrase “simplify, then add lightness”. Which is a car design philosophy that amounts to “it’s easier to make a car lighter than it is to put in a bigger engine.”

This conservative approach is widely useful. For example, beginner-to-intermediate tennis games are frequently won by the player who made fewer mistakes, rather than by the player who had more flashes of brilliance.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#45

Post by somethingsome »

jstummbillig wrote: post #31
myaccountonhn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would put another spin on it: We place more value on not being hostile to readers and users in general. For example, I noticed that the good papers are less horribly written now then they were in the past. In academia, being difficult to read and understand used to be a sign of sophistication (but more realistically serves as a way to cover up bad thinking and overall slow down progress). Today, people are actually…

I find papers nowadays contain way less content than before, yes the writing is easier to read, but the page count didn't increase, that means that there is less information per page now.

A scientific paper is written for a specific audience, experts in that field, and when you read many papers, it's very annoying 'easy writing' because you need to rapidly understand the meat of the paper, not being introduced again and again to your subject. Now it's more difficult to find the details that you need, if they're even written.

It makes maybe the job of a PhD easier when he start studying in the field, but I think we lost something there..

Not all fields are equal, deep learning papers are very easy to read, but also very annoying to read, too many repetitions of something that is explained in another paper, I don't need to read for the 100th time what NeRF is, only what is different in this paper compared to the previous ones. While many mathematical papers are way more dense and target the intended audience.

Increasing the page count is not really a solution either, it is a burden for the writer to continue writing easy things, and for the reader to never find the interesting parts.

On the other hand, when I read a paper that is not in my field, I appreciate the easy to read paper.

I think papers should return to dense readings by experts, but authors should also maintain blogs where the paper is simplified, and those blogs should be included in the evaluation for a PhD. In this way, if you are an expert, you get the interesting parts, and at the same time, if it is not your field, you can be introduced with many good blogs to the field.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#46

Post by somethingsome »

shaneos wrote: post #39
Pensacola wrote: post #22

All 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.

Author here. I find this to be a pretty cynical take. I tried to express that if I build something and it makes my kids smile then it stays in the app. You appear to have a different take on it. Should we not try to make children enjoy using the tools they use? What's the alternative? Make you app actively hostile and difficult to they'll go touch grass? I'm honestly not clear on the point you're making here.

Struggle is very good for learning, I remember as a child enjoying very difficult interfaces because I was proud of being able to navigate the software when I finally get there, becoming very efficient with it, and I learned way more about the domain. (I'm thinking for example Cubase, reason, Photoshop at the time, most linux softwares, vim,...)

While easy to use softwares are more 'enjoyable' and the dopamine reward is high for small actions, it also prevent to develop some ability and resilience in navigating harder things. When the software complexity increases, users get annoyed and don't use it correctly because they were never exposed to much complexity before. (thinking about medical softwares that require many many actions to encode a patient, finance softwares, etc..)

Now, not all softwares are made to improve one efficiency. In your case, the app allows a children to express its creativity in other ways, which is very valuable also. So I think it is good that the interface and the interaction are easy, the focus should be on the creativity and not on the manipulation.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#47

Post by miek »

Pensacola wrote: post #22

All 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.

How is this the top comment? The author's aim is making their app a joy to use because it is for their own children. You interpreted their comment about making things feel like real objects as them trying to hook users like big tobacco? Utter nonsense.

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#48

Post by mysterydip »

shaneos wrote: post #39
Pensacola wrote: post #22

All 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.

Author here. I find this to be a pretty cynical take. I tried to express that if I build something and it makes my kids smile then it stays in the app. You appear to have a different take on it. Should we not try to make children enjoy using the tools they use? What's the alternative? Make you app actively hostile and difficult to they'll go touch grass? I'm honestly not clear on the point you're making here.

I'm working on a game for my kids to play, so I for one am appreciative and taking notes for my own implementation. I've definitely observed at least some of the things mentioned, so hopefully combining those with your others will save me some time and grief. Thanks!

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#49

Post by [deleted] »

hluska wrote: post #3

I parent completely differently than most, but this top three really gets me: - Text does not actually provide guidance to a large percentage of your user base as they can’t read it How do kids learn to read without exposure? - Text takes up valuable space that could be used for better graphics or aesthetically pleasing empty space But again, how do you teach kids to read? - Text is visually unattractive and off-putt…

[deleted]

Re: Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

#50

Post by thfuran »

somethingsome wrote: post #46
shaneos wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I find this to be a pretty cynical take. I tried to express that if I build something and it makes my kids smile then it stays in the app. You appear to have a different take on it. Should we not try to make children enjoy using the tools they use? What's the alternative? Make you app actively hostile and difficult to they'll go touch grass? I'm honestly not clear on the point you're making here.

Struggle is very good for learning, I remember as a child enjoying very difficult interfaces because I was proud of being able to navigate the software when I finally get there, becoming very efficient with it, and I learned way more about the domain. (I'm thinking for example Cubase, reason, Photoshop at the time, most linux softwares, vim,...) While easy to use softwares are more 'enjoyable' and the dopamine reward…

Overcomplicating interfaces is bad for usability even if someone might feel accomplished for sorting through the mess.
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