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Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

shaneosullivan.wordpress.com

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

#61

Post by parasti »

miek wrote: post #47
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.

As a parent of a toddler, could not disagree more.

This article can be read two different ways.

A parent making an app for their own children is wholesome and making a list of UX finds is helpful to other parents in that position.

At the same time app stores are filled with games that hook kids on with bright visuals, sound effects, and basic button mashing.

That second use case is vastly more common.

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

#62

Post by Timwi »

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.

It would help if you hadn't repeatedly used exploitative marketing/business language like “user retention” and “monetization”. Your desire to delight children and make them smile is commendable if that is the end-goal, but the text reads like the end-goal is to hook children and make money off of them.

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

#63

Post by shaneos »

Timwi wrote: post #62
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.

It would help if you hadn't repeatedly used exploitative marketing/business language like “user retention” and “monetization”. Your desire to delight children and make them smile is commendable if that is the end-goal, but the text reads like the end-goal is to hook children and make money off of them.

The app's audience is children. The blog post's audience are professional designers and engineers. I am speaking their language. People build apps for a variety of reasons - I started off with this app just making it for my kids, until I decided to make an effort to find more users - and one of those reasons is to make a living off the time spent working on it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hoping to be compensated for your time and effort, and that is why we must discuss user retention and monetization. These are not dirty or exploitative terms in and of themselves, they are simply tools used to measure an app's usage and current level of progress towards your goals so that you can react accordingly.

What is exploitative is the way almost all supposedly child friendly apps try to trick or corrupt children with ads and gamified purchases. My post comes out very explicitly against this, which I presume you read.

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

#64

Post by darkwater »

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…

Learning can and should be also through practice and raising the bar, I agree, but don't mix learning as a general concept applied to a population with your own survivorship bias.

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

#65

Post by astrobe_ »

myaccountonhn wrote: post #23
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.

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…

> It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children

I read TFA because I thought some of it because some of it could be applicable to attention-deficient adults, victims of the pandemic that started before the pandemic.

Wasn't disappointed. The first observation of FTA is that children don't read, and so are adults; they don't read the docs (and forget about putting helpful info in tooltips and dialogs, they don't read them either), they read every other line in emails, etc. Unless they asked for those texts, and that may be one of the reasons why conversational AI is successful.

> Doesn't have to be bad, but I worry we lose discipline and our cognitive abilities decline when everything is spoon fed.

I think TFA is about apps with unforgiving users, so the author has to perfect the UI; he is a bona fide UI designer. I think the vast majority of applications out there don't have one. As a result the UX is generally passable at best, which adds artificial cognitive overload. You can't really blame users for taking shortcuts such as not reading. I do that, you do that, we all do that.

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

#66

Post by astrobe_ »

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.

You both fall for the false dichotomy trap. If anything, this remark should be taken as criticism towards parents who find it much more convenient to use an app and a tablet, rather than buying physical stuff, have to put it away, and to keep a close eye on their kids so they don't ruin the wallpaper or run with pointy pens in their hands etc. Certainly the thing you need on rainy days or when you have other things to do. Uti, non abuti (use but don't abuse)

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

#67

Post by dspillett »

katzenversteher wrote: post #58

I noticed that a lot of apps for young children seem not to test them properly with real children. Examples: - No / bad multitouch. Children will touch the screen when holding the device and then use the other hand to perform an action. With no multitouch or focus on the first touch action the app does not register later actions and the child gets super frustrated. In addition, with very small hands it is very likely…

> Controls close to the edge: On many devices swiping actions close to the edge will trigger phone status menus or switching between apps. This will confuse children.

It is a pain enough for adults at times!

A related issue is how easy it is to trigger your first point (accidental multi-touch, or just accidental touch, at the side of the display due to low or zero gap from the device edge to the screen edge) on many modern devices.

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

#68

Post by miek »

parasti wrote: post #61
miek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a parent of a toddler, could not disagree more. This article can be read two different ways. A parent making an app for their own children is wholesome and making a list of UX finds is helpful to other parents in that position. At the same time app stores are filled with games that hook kids on with bright visuals, sound effects, and basic button mashing. That second use case is vastly more common.

I can't help but wonder if I'm being trolled. This app does not hook kids with garbage, visuals, sound effects, or basic button mashing. The author is also against ads, social sharing (due to child safety), and children being able to spend money in the app.

You say "that second use case is vastly more common", however the author is very clearly aimed at the first use case. Yet you are arguing that they fall into the second.

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

#70

Post by parasti »

miek wrote: post #68
parasti wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent of a toddler, could not disagree more. This article can be read two different ways. A parent making an app for their own children is wholesome and making a list of UX finds is helpful to other parents in that position. At the same time app stores are filled with games that hook kids on with bright visuals, sound effects, and basic button mashing. That second use case is vastly more common.

I can't help but wonder if I'm being trolled. This app does not hook kids with garbage, visuals, sound effects, or basic button mashing. The author is also against ads, social sharing (due to child safety), and children being able to spend money in the app. You say "that second use case is vastly more common", however the author is very clearly aimed at the first use case. Yet you are arguing that they fall into the…

I am not arguing that.

You called a viewpoint that I share "utter nonsense". So I presented a counterpoint. A counterpoint to your opinion is neither a troll nor an attack on the original author's intent and/or character.

All I'm saying is we can both read the same article and one of us goes to build an app for their kid while the other goes and builds an app that gets other people's kids addicted to it while shoving ads. This has nothing to do with the author of the article.

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