Navigation in Apps for Kids

Smashing Magazine has published an article called " A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children." It was a real eye opener for me. Having two kids that love the iPad all I can do is confirm what 'Dad' is suggesting: a standard, recognizable navigation in apps, at least in those for kids.

Indeed some of the apps have that terrible tab based navigation at the bottom, and those tabs are frequently touched by mistake.

Not only the article but some of the comments are great too, here is what one of the best is suggesting:

• Support multi-touch and then ignore the touches that don’t matter. The most frustrating thing for my 2-yo is putting one hand (or palm) on part of the screen and trying to touch something else that doesn’t work.
• Undo. Unintended actions should be easily reversible.
• Timers. Allow parents to specify how much time can be spent in the app. Our kids get 20-min a day of iPad time.
• Ads in kids apps are EVIL! Especially banner ones. Charge extra if you have to. If the app is good I’ll happily pay.
• Same with in-app purchasing. I totally agree with the author. Any app targeted at small kids with in-app purchasing better have it buried somewhere hard to reach and even then double and triple password protected so only parents can authorize them.
• Variance: an app gets old really fast unless each time the child touches something, it does something slightly different.
• Please, no splash screens or startup menus. Small kids do not have the patience to sit through a 15-second promo video for the software publisher. Having to start something via a startup menu means a parent has to be involved each and every time the app is launched.
• Support app backgrounding. Can’t tell you how many times my kids accidentally hit the ‘home’ button and exit the app, then come running over. It’s really not that hard to support backgrounding so the app maintains state and when brought back to the foreground just picks up where it left off.
• Volume control: please have mercy on the rest of us. Let us set a maximum volume for music and sound-FX.
• Finally: if you put device rotation or shake input in an app targeted at small children, be prepared to get a bill for the smashed iPad screen :-)