Via the CHI-WEB mailing list, a summary of resources for those interested in, or currently designing websites for kids. This summary was gathered by Susan Tropeano from Clearuse.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alertbox 04/2002 (J. Neilsen)
"Even though participants in our study were very young, they often had the greatest success using websites intended for adults. Sites such as Amazon and Yahoo! are committed to utter simplicity and compliance with Web design conventions, and have become so easy to use that they support little kids very well. " "Also, kids are keenly aware of their age and differentiate sharply between material that is appropriate for them and material for older or younger kids, however close in age they might be. At one website, a six-year-old said, "This website is for babies, maybe four or five years old. You can tell because of the cartoons and trains." "Out of sight is out of mind. Most younger kids don't understand about page scrolling, so be sure that your most important site information is visible without scrolling. If kids can't see an element or link without scrolling the page, then they may never see it at all. " Animation and sound effects were positive design elements for children; they often created a good first impression that encouraged users to stay with a site. Children were willing to "mine-sweep," scrubbing the screen with the mouse either to find clickable areas or simply to enjoy the sound effects that different screen elements played. Geographic navigation metaphors worked: Kids liked the pictures of rooms, villages, 3D maps, or other simulated environments that served as an overview and entry point to various site or subsite features. Children rarely scrolled pages and mainly interacted with information that was visible above the fold. (We also observed this behavior among adult Web users in 1994, but our more recent studies show that adults now tend to scroll Web pages.) Half of our young users were willing to read instructions; indeed, they often preferred to read a paragraph or so of instructions before starting a new game. ============== Whitepaper: Kids Usability Testing - What We Learned "While the lack of instructions or clear labeling and the unfamiliar interface might deter adults from even getting started, by and large the children’s natural curiosity led them to dive right in. By dragging things to different places and clicking everywhere, they quickly figured out how it all worked. " =============== Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland
Many related papers including one particularly pertinent: "Young Children’s Search Strategies and Construction of Search Queries" -Allison Druin and others. - "While the use of text is not an issue for older children and adults,young children (4-7 years of age), have difficulty when it comes to typing skills, spelling, and syntax comprehension." - "...children’s searches became more efficient with each subsequent item, indicating a practice effect." - "So, for the most part, children successfully employed a strategy of trying to find each target animal in as few steps as possible, in an extremely focused and goal-directed manner." - very interesting information about "scaffolding" - "the display of "in-progress" search results on the same screen, while the search query is being formulated, makes it extremely easy for children to see whether their queries have been formulated correctly or not, and to adjust and modify their queries when needed." =============== Kids prize Web Simplicity, reject complex interfacesLarry Magid The Mercury News
"Like adults, kids want to be able to find information quickly and easily. It may come as a surprise to some children's Web site developers who like to use odd colors and weird type faces that kids want sites with text that is legible and easy to read. " " Even young children have invested considerable time learning to use standard navigational tools. Why not take advantage of that learning instead of baffling the kids by overly creative (i.e. non-standard) interfaces?" " In other words, a bit of non-gratuitous sizzle is OK, as long as it helps lead to child in the direction of the content." =============== "The weight of empirical evidence to date clearly favors the conclusion that the [BACK] button is an integral element in Web navigation." "However, we observed that "knowing what to try next" may be less important than simply trying something different. " " We have encountered widespread speculation among design professionals that visually rich graphical presentation is a vital element in capturing and holding the attention of younger users. Yet prior research suggests a minimal relationship between graphical elements and either search success [10] or site traffic [1]." "The implications of this finding are twofold. The designers of the Disney site have succeeded in creating a visually compelling environment, complete with professional-quality graphics, splash-screens, and ubiquitous animation, all of which presumably contribute to the childrens' overall assessment of Disney as more fun to use. Yet our results suggest that task-related variables (such as question complexity) are more important than specific interface elements in determining the success of children's information-seeking efforts." ================ American Library Association Great Websites for Kids The text should be easy to read, and not cluttered with distracting graphics, fonts, and backgrounds. ================ Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Wrote book "Weaving a Library Web: A Guide to Developing Children's Websites" -separate interfaces for "kids" and "teens" -very small body, textual left nav remains. -Homework Help - largely textual -for teens - excellent site! ================ Some interesting websites to consider:
International Children's Digital Library Search tools on front page - options for kids 3-13 - narrow format, clear labels, colorful graphics Library at Casis Elementary School
The Resource Centre at Palmerston District Primary School Room graphic/comfort zone - uses a stack of books similar to the one Sue Hardy likes, as a left nav bar. Click on World Atlas - slow to load. ================ "Designing a Digital Library for Young Children: An Intergenerational Partnership" An interesting paper about using children to help you produce a design for children. Holds the very popular belief that adults (including teachers and parents) are not good representatives of what will work for children. ================ THE SCHOOL LIBRARY AS INFORMATION PROVIDER: THE HOME PAGE Dr. Laurel A. Clyde, Library and Information Science Department, Univ of Iceland This is an older information site focused on school library websites. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated since 1997. However, Dr. Clyde has another site that has more recent information, including school library best practices, school libraries online directory, and school library award program. ================ The January 2005 issue of Communications of the ACM will include a special section focused on "Interaction Design and Children". Description of coming next month on Page 22, Dec 2004/Vol 47, No 12. ================ Large, Andrew, et al. "Design Criteria for Children's Web Portals: The Users Speak Out," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(2):79-94, 2002. ================ There was extensive research conducted on how Danish school children use the Web as part of a project to build a library search interface. A test version of the English language version of the search product that resulted from that research.
Your browser will need a Macromedia Flash plugin for the software to work. ================ Educause 2004 Presentation called "Educating the Net Generation".
================ Christine Borgman on children's use of a Dewey-based online library catalog of science materials. A couple papers were published in the ASIS bulletin. This is her papers list, just look for "sciencelibrary" :
================ Some quantitative data from Nielsen//Netratings: that can be of some interest to you. Other links:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/88512325/ABSTRACT
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================ Here are some papers that might interest you:
Having fun or finding information? Usability for kids sections of Web sites
================ Susan Tropeano
Improving Internet Content, One Website at a Time