CHECKLIST FOR THE DEVELOPMENTS OF MOBILE APPS FOR CHILDREN

Now one of the Fingers media teams is working on designing a mobile application with the active usage of video content for children.

At the initial stage we’ve studied the leaders in this domain and noticed the following trends:

Sound effects

• Children want to receive a response to all their actions (in the application children expect visual and auditory feedback when they perform any actions).
• The background sound of the application creates an atmosphere and allows children to memorize melodies;
• Sound buttons help children to navigate better in the application and determine the correctness of their actions.

Design

• Short video or animation when the application is first launched. Some kind of animated downloading of the application will help to interest the child, so he will want to know what waits him next.
• Spectacular main screen (applications for children should keep their attention, so the main screen should be accompanied by some animated hero or have a moving background).
• The location of important elements should be in the expected places (the non-obviousness of the action makes the child to stall and mostly it leads to the closure of the application).
• The use of large buttons and the reduction of their amount (it’s difficult for children to tap on small buttons with their fingers, so the buttons should be large);
• The usage of bright colors.

Parent control
Google paid $ 19 million to parents whose children bought apps on Google Play without their permission. Therefore, it’s not superfluous to remember the following important nuances:

• Children shouldn’t have access to parental passwords;
• Parents must control the kind of the videos that their child is viewing;
• Key actions such as “buying” or “downloading” should be protected by parental control, because it can lead to undesirable wasting, so it should be taken consciously.

In conclusion we want to pay attention to a few more simple things:

• Children are more trusting and curious. Take this into account when you assume that “this kid will never get here”;
• Automatic loading in video applications is very important, because it’s more difficult for a child to make a decision on the choice of a video than if it’s automatically reproduced;
• Small children can’t predict or understand the consequences of their actions, which creates additional responsibility for the developers.