High five — Episode 6 – 5 patterns to change when designing products for kids

Welcome to this new episode of High Five, a not always bi-monthly, not always curated, list of interesting items focused on kids and family tech. The last weeks have been rich in discussions with kids startups and their products. It inspired me to create a list of 5 patterns I believe should be banned by product designers for kids and some recommendations on how to deal with them.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

1. Aggressive monetisation

The feeling when you walk down the street with your kid, and the balloons’ sales guy makes his pitch just as you pass by. The kid wants it, you have to say no, the sales guy just made YOU the bad person. That is how a large number of apps for kids seem to sell you their subscription or in-app purchase. Please STOP.

Recommendations:

• Sell subscriptions or in-app purchase only in a dedicated parents section.
• Do not bait the kids into opening the purchase page. The furthest the kid should come is a place where it is explained why they cannot access a specific feature.
• Be very transparent with your pricing. You are selling to parents which often cannot afford all the subs we try to sell them and need ot make a pricey choice with a high emotional pressure to be a good parent.

2. Any kind of binge autoplay watch

Autoplay after each episode, background play in show preview, release of full seasons at once; everything on streaming platforms has been conceived to make us, potential junkie adults, watch more and more content.

Just don’t do it with kids. Please.

Recommendations:

• Use the end of a show to interact with the child (ask a question, use a core image from the show to reflect on it, bring a connected fun fact to learn something new).
• Package shows so parents can decide watch time ahead (e.g create a 30 min session, or a 2 shows ticket).
• Remove any autoplay or background preview of shows and make every play the result of a clear intent.

3. Gamification with the goal of addiction

Gamification has been a buzzword of product managers and growth hackers for the past decade. The points, the virtual badges, the in-app coins, the friends rankings, all are there to lock us in, to keep us wanting to move forward and get more. Kids are quick learners and are intrinsically motivated to reach the next level, but it makes them even easier to manipulate. Be careful.

Recommendations:

• Do not gamify what is not inherently a game (e.g do not give points for watching more cartoons, do not give credits to play a game because you solved a math problem).
• Explain the value of your gamification system to parents. If you believe your gamification helps the kid in the journey of your service, make sure the parents understand how and why.
• Keep your gamification simple and focused on the journey, do not glorify rewards which will turn kids into loot box hunting teenagers.

4. Banner ads

Kids should not have to make the difference between content and an ad. Actually, they should not even have to know what an ad is. Once they do learn it, it should be clear and simple for them to differentiate ad and content. Treat them with respect.

Recommendations:

• If you can, simply do not have advertising in your kids’ product.
• If you believe advertising is your revenue source, you could integrate the brands in a more native context so they contribute to your product value. Can you create unique content or experiences with brands?
• Involve the parents in your product journey and try target the advertising towards them.

5. Unnecessary tracking

How much information do you really need about a 5 years old? Do you really want to run retargeting campaigns based on their last purchase and the chance of them completing your subscription funnel with a 10% discount? No.

Recommendations:

• Do not track kids if you do not have to.
• Anonymise as much as you can upfront.
• Ask the information you need, to the kid or to the parents. Tracking is often used to optimise a product for what we have come to consider lazy end users. Kids should actively participate in tailoring their experience.

This was a bit of a different post but I enjoyed thinking about it. I am sure there are many other patterns one should think differently when designing for kids.

If you do not know it yet, check out the D4CR guide. It is a good start to trigger thoughts about designing for kids. I find sometimes that it lacks concrete examples and applications. Maybe something I will start to work on.

Until next time, High Five.