PLAY = LEARNING
DIGITAL TOYS AND A NEED TO MOVE AWAY FROM LEARNING FOCUSED KID’S APPS.
Sept 24, 2017, Speaker submission for Unite Nasscom Game Design Conference 2017, Hyderabad, India
“Dad, hand me your phone, I wanna finish the room I was decorating,” saying that my 5-year old niece snatched my cousin’s iPhone and started working on her masterpiece, a room she had designing on an interior decoration app. It made me wonder how kids today have access to amazing technologies that gives them endless possibilities of learning, creating and play. Many households today, have at least 1 shared smartphone or tablet and a large percentage of first time tech users are not even in Kindergarten yet. There are more than 200,000 apps in the Apple App Store & Google Play that target kids. And what’s noteworthy is that more than eighty percent of the paid app revenue in the App Store comes from the kids’ apps. This is a huge opportunity for app creators, game developers and designers. However, most of the apps for kids currently in the app stores are education and learning games that are simply not engaging. For a successful app for kids, especially for kids under 10 years of age, the app needs to provide an open ended and non-restrictive experience that lets their wonderful imagination take flight and make them curious about the world.
Apps in the kids genre usually rely on a pay-per-download model for monetization. In-app purchases are usually frowned upon by parents and is usually discouraged as a path for monetization from the app. In-app advertising is not only disliked by parents, it comes with serious privacy and security concerns. Moreover, it does not comply with regulations such as COPPA (The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), which is compulsory for publish- ing in the USA. Other revenue sources such as merchandise and media are not feasible at early stages of the brand. Therefore getting discovered and downloads become the most important factors for any of these apps.
As a result, kids’ apps end up having to first target the parents, who are most often the primary owners and operators of the devices. They are typically willing to shell out their money on such apps if they see that they are beneficial for the kids, which explains the glut of learning toys and games. On the surface inoculating a little bit of math or coding in a game sounds like a great idea, but it is bound to fail as kids usually do not find it interest- ing. Buzzwords like grammar, math, coding, apps that push girls into STEM, etc., all seem very cool and are very popular. So popular that to some parents it might even feel imperative for the kids’ success. However, these educational games are linear, and constrain the kids thought process. They are also too narrowly focused. The kid’s mind is just exposed to just the idea it is being fed instead of the kids using it’s imagination and exploring what they like. Moreover, most kids interact with these devices in their “play” time and the last thing they are interested in, are games that remind them of schoolwork and studies. Such an approach only gets you the first download, but the real value is in building trust and brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is also very important for better discoverability on the App Store, since not all of your apps will make it to the top picks or most grossing section. Such loyalty builds when your app is engaging, brings out strong emotions, and is loved by both the parents and the kids.
So what is it that is engaging? What do young kids really enjoy? To find out, I observed what kind of daily routines kids have and understand their wants, needs and emotions. I learnt that kids under 10 years of age are always in a controlled and restricted environ- ment. They are told when to wake up, how to brush their teeth, what to eat and when to sleep. They are always told what to do and what not to do; but in “play” they find freedom and have the most fun. At this young age, they are not as competitive, but are more like little scientists, trying to make sense of the world around them. “Play” allows them to syn- thesise their thoughts, make sense of what they hear and experience everyday, learn to make their own choices, to collaborate, learn social skills, make decisions and also learn to self regulate their emotions.
Consider this one time when I was observing the “play” time of two sisters, 3 and 7 years old respectively, which involved activities such as drawing and painting. When they start- ed painting, their mom was present in the room and seemed to be directing their painting time. They were told to paint inside the lines, what colours to use and how much paint to use. The girls seemed to be doing it as a chore. As soon as the mom left, the older one asked, “Can I put colour on my hand and do hand painting?”. “I’ll paint my hand too!”, said the younger one. The 7 year old started painting her hand pink with a lot of paint on her brush. I joined them along. We all then started stamping our hands on a big sheet of paper. The little girls felt free and started to giggle. They also started planning what they would do in some future trip to London, how they would present the painting to the Queen. The elder one poured some paint onto a sheet of paper, and spread all of it with both her hands. The younger one laughed. The sheet no longer had our distinct hand stamps, but by now was a complete smudge. We painted till we were out of paint, till our hands and feet were both covered with paint and we couldn’t control our laughter.
Even though it made the space slightly messy, it was a beautiful experience. Given the freedom, they painted without inhibition like an artist who is free and confident with their strokes. They took their own decisions, made some stories and later roamed around show- ing off their most fun creation with giggles and pride. To be truly engaging and interesting for kids, digital apps need to be designed keeping the kids in perspective. Apps for kids need to be open ended and put the kid at the director’s seat.
One of the defining characteristic of play is that it’s directed by the kids themselves. Adult-directed games like sports, or activities in school where a teacher is telling children what to do, cannot be considered “play”. Kids find it boring. “Play” has no rules, no wrong answer, no right way. It is without restraint and freeing. Kids’ toys (as opposed to games) have been historically designed for exactly such freeing experiences. The best toys come with no instructions and are as open ended as possible. They have no rules, no backstory, no singular end goal. Toys like these empower kids to leap off, create their own worlds and go where their imaginations take them.
And with the endless possibilities that portable devices, multi-sensory gadgets and VR/ AR platforms provide, toys in the digital age can be made even more open ended and can provide previously unimaginable experiences. Whether the back seat of a car, a restaurant or an airplane, the kids’ toys can be always available with digital devices. They can introduce kids’ to different scenarios and different worlds. They can simulate experiences such as living underwater with SpongeBob or taking magic lessons at Hogwarts. They can even build their own universes with apps like Minecraft. Research conducted by the LEGO company’s Future Lab discovered that, “Kids no longer make meaningful distinctions be- tween digital play, such as Minecraft, and physical play. It’s the basis of LEGO’s novel hy- brid digital-physical experiences that involve playing with a set of bricks alongside a piece of software running on a phone, tablet, or computer” (Fast Company, Jan 2015). Moreover, when kids have easy access to such technology, they feel empowered to take risks.Our test-centric education system has created kids who are afraid to make mistakes. Sadly, when you are afraid to make a mistake, you shy away from creativity. With technology, mistakes can be undone with a tap or swipe. All of this makes the prospect of digital toys extremely promising and exciting.
Success will be where kids find the joy of “play” and where the parents are convinced that play isn’t all fun and games, it is a genius teaching tool. To builds successful apps, the next generation of kids’ app developers and creator need to utilise this knowledge and combine it with the endless potential of technology. They need to understand what kids find interesting, how kids interact with the world. The app developers need to design open ended and interactive digital toys, not for but “with” kids.
One of my favourite quote is by the author of Blockbuster toys, Gene Del Veccio. He says,
“Many of the toy makers who invented blockbust- er toys did not do so by following the pack (i.e., the money). Instead they followed new paths that had yet to demonstrate their financial worth. They satisfied emotional needs that other toy makers had ig- nored. They found ways to produce smiles that others missed.”
The takeaway — make something for the pure joy of play and learning and engagement will follow.
