7 ms·

Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children

203 points by shaneos 1y ago

casey2 1y ago
>children should never spend money, this is obvious uh huh? This seems more like it's the authors idea of what he wants children to be than how children are in reality.
- shaneos 1y ago
  [author] It's my idea of how app builders should design and build apps. It's an anti-pattern to build an app that allows children to spend their parent's money without express permission.
preordained 1y ago
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
- justonceokay 1y ago
  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.”
  - sandspar 1y ago
    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.
- LeifCarrotson 1y ago
  "Simplify, then add lightness" is a famous quote from Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus (a high-performance sports car manufacturer).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
card_zero 1y ago
What delights me is that your rainbow has brown in it.
- John23832 1y ago
  Orange sir
- shaneos 1y ago
  [author] If you double tap the rainbow button you can design your own gradient, so use all the shades of brown you like :-)
hluska 1y ago
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-putting to most children. Nonsense - text is only visually unattractive to children because we treat them like they can’t interact with it. Text is a visual representation of language - if it’s ’offputting’ to your children, you fumbled at the goal line. For the love of children, stop wasting neuroplasticity. By the first grade, your teachers know how much you promote the written language at home. By grade four, the damage has been done.
- cafp12 1y ago
  Maybe they don't need to learn to read through an art application?
  - vages 1y ago
    And maybe they do? If you make the elevator more accessible than the stairs, people get lazy.
    - cafp12 1y ago
      Huh is there like an epidemic of children who can't read because kid pix doesn't have words in it?
  - humanfromearth9 1y ago
    Actually, when learning to read, you want children to be exposed for a long time and recurrently to a large quantity of text. The quality of the text should be a later objective, when reading has been acquired. Anecdotally, I've tried to teach my son to read from quite a young age, but it didn't work well, mainly because his brain was not ready for it (that happens often with children: they seem to not understand something despite your efforts to teach them, then suddenly, a few months later, you realize that it spontaneously clicked and they perfectly master the subject/reasoning). Then one of his friends began reading the One Piece mangas (because his older brother was reading them). Like his friend with his brother, my son became intrigued by the story and I bought him the books. That was 5.5 months ago, he had just become 7 years old. He has now reached number 38, his reading ability improved in ways I would have never imagined before. Now he's fluent in reading and started to write a kind of journal. Qualitatively, I do consider One Piece to be poor. Not only the text, also the pictures. Still, the focus on quantity during the last months has fundamentally changed his relation to text and books. Since then, he has also read a number of other books (children novels with almost no pictures) and Belgian/French comics. We'll see about higher quality readings later, when pleasure of reading is deeply ingrained and fear is completely gone. If one is not confronted with text, how should one become fluent in reading and writing? "On ne fait bien que ce qu'on fait d'habitude."/One only does well what one does usually. (Pr Philippe Boxho)
M95D 1y ago
Looks like modern UI for adults to me...
danjl 1y ago
These principles are good for all ages. Similar to how designing for handicapped users is generally better for everyone (see Good Grips).
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y ago
  Generally yes, but sometimes no. Take for instance the requirement to have the fire alarms at toddler height in our local daycare.
  - _9ptr 1y ago
    How else are toddlers going to learn how fun a prank call is?
    - sandspar 1y ago
      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.
- brainzap 1y ago
  thats a thing, we are all humans
Pensacola 1y ago
<Kids also love tactility, and the more your 2D app can feel like a real physical object the better.> 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.
- myaccountonhn 1y ago
  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.
  - sudoshred 1y ago
    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.
    - myaccountonhn 1y ago
      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 respecting (as in more secure, preserves privacy, gives autonomy) software is inherently more complex than "user-friendly" alternatives?
prats226 1y ago
https://www.jonathansapps.com/ https://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
jrm4 1y ago
To 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)
robertclaus 1y ago
Good lessons for those of us working on adult tools as well!
kazinator 1y ago
> Simplify OK: "add delight"
stevoski 1y ago
This is wonderful advice. A lot of apps intended for mainly adult use could do well by at least considering much of this advice.
katzenversteher 1y ago
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 that multiple fingers touch the screen, especially the thumb if the index finger is used. - 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.
- dspillett 1y ago
  > 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.
dkga 1y ago
Very thoughtful remarks.
the-smug-one 1y ago
I loved "Disney's Magic Artist Studio" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoyg4HB-nyc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoyg4HB-nyc ) when I was a kid. You could spray cream onto the canvas, or add bugs and eye balls!!!
- shaneos 1y ago
  You can drop balloons full of paint in this, even rainbow coloured paint :-)

203 points by shaneos 1y ago

>children should never spend money, this is obvious uh huh? This seems more like it's the authors idea of what he wants children to be than how children are in reality.

shaneos 1y ago
[author] It's my idea of how app builders should design and build apps. It's an anti-pattern to build an app that allows children to spend their parent's money without express permission.

preordained 1y ago

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

justonceokay 1y ago
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.”
- sandspar 1y ago
  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.
LeifCarrotson 1y ago
"Simplify, then add lightness" is a famous quote from Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus (a high-performance sports car manufacturer).
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

card_zero 1y ago

What delights me is that your rainbow has brown in it.

John23832 1y ago
Orange sir
shaneos 1y ago
[author] If you double tap the rainbow button you can design your own gradient, so use all the shades of brown you like :-)

hluska 1y ago

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-putting to most children. Nonsense - text is only visually unattractive to children because we treat them like they can’t interact with it. Text is a visual representation of language - if it’s ’offputting’ to your children, you fumbled at the goal line. For the love of children, stop wasting neuroplasticity. By the first grade, your teachers know how much you promote the written language at home. By grade four, the damage has been done.

cafp12 1y ago
Maybe they don't need to learn to read through an art application?
- vages 1y ago
  And maybe they do? If you make the elevator more accessible than the stairs, people get lazy.
  - cafp12 1y ago
    Huh is there like an epidemic of children who can't read because kid pix doesn't have words in it?
- humanfromearth9 1y ago
  Actually, when learning to read, you want children to be exposed for a long time and recurrently to a large quantity of text. The quality of the text should be a later objective, when reading has been acquired. Anecdotally, I've tried to teach my son to read from quite a young age, but it didn't work well, mainly because his brain was not ready for it (that happens often with children: they seem to not understand something despite your efforts to teach them, then suddenly, a few months later, you realize that it spontaneously clicked and they perfectly master the subject/reasoning). Then one of his friends began reading the One Piece mangas (because his older brother was reading them). Like his friend with his brother, my son became intrigued by the story and I bought him the books. That was 5.5 months ago, he had just become 7 years old. He has now reached number 38, his reading ability improved in ways I would have never imagined before. Now he's fluent in reading and started to write a kind of journal. Qualitatively, I do consider One Piece to be poor. Not only the text, also the pictures. Still, the focus on quantity during the last months has fundamentally changed his relation to text and books. Since then, he has also read a number of other books (children novels with almost no pictures) and Belgian/French comics. We'll see about higher quality readings later, when pleasure of reading is deeply ingrained and fear is completely gone. If one is not confronted with text, how should one become fluent in reading and writing? "On ne fait bien que ce qu'on fait d'habitude."/One only does well what one does usually. (Pr Philippe Boxho)

M95D 1y ago

Looks like modern UI for adults to me...

danjl 1y ago

These principles are good for all ages. Similar to how designing for handicapped users is generally better for everyone (see Good Grips).

Simon_O_Rourke 1y ago
Generally yes, but sometimes no. Take for instance the requirement to have the fire alarms at toddler height in our local daycare.
- _9ptr 1y ago
  How else are toddlers going to learn how fun a prank call is?
  - sandspar 1y ago
    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.
brainzap 1y ago
thats a thing, we are all humans

Pensacola 1y ago

<Kids also love tactility, and the more your 2D app can feel like a real physical object the better.> 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.

myaccountonhn 1y ago
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.
- sudoshred 1y ago
  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.
  - myaccountonhn 1y ago
    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 respecting (as in more secure, preserves privacy, gives autonomy) software is inherently more complex than "user-friendly" alternatives?

prats226 1y ago

https://www.jonathansapps.com/ https://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

jrm4 1y ago

To 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)

robertclaus 1y ago

Good lessons for those of us working on adult tools as well!

kazinator 1y ago

> Simplify OK: "add delight"

stevoski 1y ago

This is wonderful advice. A lot of apps intended for mainly adult use could do well by at least considering much of this advice.

katzenversteher 1y ago

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 that multiple fingers touch the screen, especially the thumb if the index finger is used. - 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.

dspillett 1y ago
> 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.

dkga 1y ago

Very thoughtful remarks.

the-smug-one 1y ago

I loved "Disney's Magic Artist Studio" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoyg4HB-nyc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoyg4HB-nyc ) when I was a kid. You could spray cream onto the canvas, or add bugs and eye balls!!!

shaneos 1y ago
You can drop balloons full of paint in this, even rainbow coloured paint :-)