3 Tips to Design an Engaging User Interview with Kids

Stepping closer to kids’ needs, motivations, and challenges

Kids have different needs than adults.

Kids have different goals and success criteria than adults.

Kids have other capabilities than adults.

Kids follow different user journeys than adults.

Kids express themselves differently from adults.

- Thomas Visby Snitker, User Research with Kids

We at 55 Minutes worked with the SmartJen team to redesign their student learning platform for kids aged 11 to 14 years old to create a more engaging and enjoyable learning process. To do this, we conducted interviews with kids to understand their perspectives, what causes them to behave a certain way, and what their needs and motivations are.

From our interviews with kids, we learned several pieces of wisdom we’d love to share with you. So here are 3 tips that you can consider when planning research questions for kids and teens!

1. Make sure to include easy warm-up questions at the start.

It is important to help kids feel at ease at the start, which will create a safe space where they can share their thoughts more fluently and honestly.

Some sample questions you can consider are:

• What are your favorite activities to do after school?
• What is your favorite game? Who do you play the game with?
• What are your favorite apps?

Also, ensure that you explain the research purpose and the kinds of questions you’ll ask. Help kids become familiar with the topic you’ll be discussing.

• We want to talk about the learning website that you’re using every day. You can simply think about any online website that your school or your tuition center uses
• You can be honest about what you think, because we won’t share your name

Don’t forget to tell them it’s okay to take some time to explain if it’s hard to answer.

2. Don’t ask too many open-ended questions; save them for when they’re necessary.

Psychologically, kids’ brains are still maturing and developing which can make it hard to think critically and analytically. Therefore, we shouldn’t ask the same questions as we do with adults, such as “what do you hope to see in this product” or “why you don’t like this feature in this product”. They might have difficulty explaining their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs clearly. By asking leading questions like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to start the conversation, it can be easier for kids to give us their answers.

Otherwise, you can take note of our next tip below which encourages you to give them options to choose!

3. Use visual tools to help kids articulate their thoughts and preferences.

Prepare some visual prompts that can inspire kids to articulate their thoughts and what they like and don’t like. Visual tools can turn the research session into an activity, so kids can stay interested in the research topic areas and you can get a better understanding of their needs and motivations. For our SmartJen user research, digital card sorting and website comparison methods were chosen as a visual tool to initiate and continue conversations with kids.

Digital Card Sorting: Visual cards were used to help kids identify which element of the learning websites they like and dislike, and why.

We also did competitor’s website comparisons, which let kids identify their favorite parts of other websites. Looking at the real website encourages kids to explain the reason why they prefer website A rather than website B.

We selected three representative learning websites where the system, visual styles, and worksheet elements are designed in different concepts.

Through the comparisons, we were able to identify the learning platform that appealed most to students and the elements that would help them engage in their learning process and why.

These visual tools facilitate better communication with kids as they help kids provide more specific feedback.

Side note: How easy or difficult it is to gain a clear answer from kids sometimes depends on the child’s personality and their preferred ways to communicate. In case some kids feel too shy to share their thoughts and opinions, having parents around can be very helpful to follow up with more detailed feedback after interviewing the kids.

Having addressed the importance of understanding kids’ perspectives which can be different from adults, we hope our learnings and tips will be helpful for other UX researchers and practitioners to plan and conduct effective research with kids. We can’t wait to hear about what product you’re designing for your tiny humans!

If you’re interested in learning more about our work, you can reach out at hello@55mins.com.

Hye Yoon is a UX researcher at 55 Minutes. She has a Bachelor’s in furniture and spatial design from Seoul, South Korea, and has a Master’s in Helsinki, Finland. Currently, she lives in Singapore, observing her surroundings from the lens of a tourist from time to time. She loves nature and goes cycling every weekend in the Northeast region of Singapore.

If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in this one:

Designing a children’s app? 5 Factors to keep in mind