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## [**Design** principles for **children's** technology](http://www.hci.usask.ca/publications/2005/HCI_TR_2005_02_Design.pdf)
When a designer wants to make an interface for children they go in with the mindset of making it kid-friendly. But what does kid-friendly mean? To most it results in more colors or cute buttons or arbitrary design principles that work best for adults. This paper was written as a first attempt to bring together children’s interface design principles. The catalogueu is important because children should not be treated or seen as mini adults, they are children with different ways of communicating, competing tasks, and learning. The design principles are categorized under cognitive, physical, and social/emotional development, each containing sub categories which include rules, methods, and examples.
### Design Principles for Children's Technology
#### Cognitive Development
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##### Tangibility
- Children like tangible interfaces because they enjoy being able to physically touch and manipulate the devices [6,9,24]
- Direct manipulatives allow children to explore and actively participate in the discovery process [9,19,24,36]
- Physical props and having large input devices encourages collaboration [27]
- Superficial changes to the design can produce very different physical interactions. Different interfaces emphasize different actions [27]
-#### Social/Emotional Development
#### Social/Emotional Development
##### Motivation and Engagement
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- Interfaces should support both “give” and “take” transfers of control to accommodate different interaction styles [13]
- Single-Display Groupware is useful for children’s co-located collaboration as they naturally group to one computer even when they have the opportunity to use separate machines [14,29]
Abstract
-design principles used in adult interfaces cant be applied to children's products, because needs, skills, and expectations are different of each group
-design principles for children not collected in one place
-this paper is a catalogue of design principles for children's tech for use of designers
-children are an important user group for software and tech
-user group is unique: goals for computers education or entertainment based, not productivity; they have a wide range of skills and abilities; and their experience with computers begins early and continues through their lives
-children not mini adults, design principles need to meet children's own needs and goals
-education/entertainment: user motivation and engagment important as task efficiency, value only attained is users spend time with product and keeps attention
-designers must concentrate on mechanics of interfaces but also engaging features
-need to take into account intended audience, look @ child's stage of development for reasonable expectations in terms of interactions
-product must be adapted to particular needs of users, includes modes of communication, inpute methods, tasks, and apperance
-children are rarely involved in developement of products for kids, not there are more design guidlines for children
-but the design principles are difficult to find
-disciplines child design crosses over: human -computer interaction, education, and psychology (rephrase)
-designers do not question their assumptions when creating new product for children
-info from disparate sources must be brought together
-paper takes 1st step into solving problem, it collect organizes design principles and insights, gathered from several sourcs, into an initial catalogue of design principles for children's technology.
Organization of Catalogue
-children's development categorized in 3 main areas (cognitive, physical, and social/emotional)
1) cognitive- development address menatal and intellectual growth of child
2) physical- development deals with development of fine and gross motor skills + coordination (+ = as well as)
3) social/emotional- development closely tied: social dev involves formatoin of relationship with others; emotional dev refers to child's ability to understand, regulate, and express their own feelings + capacity for empathy and compassion
-to meet children's needs and expectations, children's tech must take into account and support these development areas
-below design principles recognize diff levels of cognitive development thru diff literacy level, diff levels of task guidance, and through tailoring to diff stages of mental dev and imagination (??? what does this mean)
-physical dev is reflected by types of input techniques that can be used and in use of tangible interfaces
-support for diff emotional and social dev is seen in diff opportunities to form relationships w/ others and w/ computer
-some design principles fall under multiple categories as they address several need, but are placed in category best suited for their main purpose
A catalogue of design principles
-following sections describe design principles that came from research in HCI, education, and psychology.
-while many design principles (dp) can be adapted to meet needs of children from diff age groups, most cases r done with specific age range
-older -> not fully understand text-based instructoins, young -> not know alphabet yet
-creative spellers, not good for interface recognized textual input (convetional interfaces text-based menus & help functions)
-variance of reading & writing level, interfaces designed w/narrow age-group in mind 2 meet need of user
GRAPHICAL METAPHORS (Steiner & Moher): storybook resemblence (4-7 yr old), infered purpose & operatoin of software, top-half 4 created images, bottom-half 4 writing story, helped to quickly learn software (what is they dont read)
SEARCHKIDS (Druin): graphical search interface allows querying, browsing, & reviewing search results thru graphics, content-specific metaphores (zoo navi 4 animals), form quieries by dragging representative icons, easy navigation of a large info space not accessible in past, research reinforces content-specific graphical-metaphors appropriate representations 4 kids & visual interfaces w/ minimal text are most useful
INTERFACE DESIGN GUIDELINES (Hanna): 4rm years of expierence w/ developing software, 2 deal w/ varying literacy level suggest presenting instructions in age-appropriate format & include option of having text instructions read aloud (not accustomed to reading screen),instructions should be easy to remember & should avoid using concepts unfamiliar 2 kids, on screen characters can speak instructions w/ corresponding animations (method helpful bcuz it directs attentions & helps in understanding)
-Common theme: text not effective to convery into to kids, visual or audio cues r better (info still needs to b age-appropriate & clear)
Feedback and Guidance
-expect 2 c results of actions immediately, if nothing happens after input they will repeat action til somthing does happen, constant auditory & visual feedback expected
-use system w/out instruction, must be intuitive or provide guidance thtu tasks
SCAFFOLDING (Danesh): supports thru necessary steps, 10-13 yr olds forget how to beam info between devices & needed 2 b reminded 2 point devices towards each other used wizard like interface to constrain process (Geney)
-Hanna: activities should start simple then increase complexity and difficulty as required skills are mastered, feedback important & should guide thru learning concepts
-Sedighian & Klawe: gradually removing feedback & cues in educational game encouraged 12-14 yr olds to take on increasing cognitive responsibilty & stimulated engagement w/ math concepts, initial levels
