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A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

463 points by pascal07 15y ago

loftwyr 15y ago
My only addition is to ask for a band on scroll bars in a kids app, especially on the bottom of the page.
- tnorthcutt 15y ago
  Do you mean a "ban" on scroll bars?
  - loftwyr 15y ago
    Yes, my fingers don't always type what I expect...
ja27 15y ago
Generally good advice. Play-testing with young kids is a big help. I also don't like an app that has the kid shake the iPad (or iPhone) a lot. I'm torn on the "Don't trick my kids into buying stuff" one. I've seen a lot of crappy apps (and even well-built Smurfy-Smurf ones) that are just funnels to in-app purchases. But I've also seen parents leave outraged reviews because a developer dares to have in-app purchases for additional content in his free app. Or they turn their nose up at paying $1.99 for an iPad app. The world doesn't owe you free high-quality kids' apps. Go ahead and funnel your kid's allowance into iTunes credit now and use it to get them to clean their room.
- huggyface 15y ago
  Or they turn their nose up at paying $1.99 for an iPad app I think that's out of context to even bring up. The complaint is scummy in-app purchases and they are a scourge mostly meant to exploit the easy clicking of kids with the default "no barrier" purchase mechanism. I've uninstalled and forever purged several apps for exactly this monetizing strategy. I have zero problem or hesitation paying up upfront, honest price for an app.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    >mostly meant to exploit the easy clicking of kids with the default "no barrier" purchase mechanism. How do you define a "scummy in-app purchase that's a scourge meant to exploit kids" from a non-scummy in app purchase?
    - scdc 15y ago
      If it's designed for young kids, and the in-app purchase is reachable in 1 or 2 taps, it is scummy.
    - ja27 15y ago
      If there's a $1.99 "20 additional game levels" after you finish the first 20, that's not scummy. If there's a $99 in-app purchase (Basket of Smurfberries), that's scummy.
      - ArtB 15y ago
        Sadly, that is just people responding to the market conditions. Most people want things near to free, so the initial price must be low or else you'll get ignored. Then, you need some whales to actually generate revenue. Surely there is some CEO you'll happily pay $99 bucks to shut his kids up.
        plink 15y ago
        Market conditions can be constrained by regulations such as Apple's prohibition against pornography. Eighteenth century USA excused slavery as the price of doing business before government regulations altered those market conditions. Prior to such changes the practice was no less scummy. In-App kid-chiseling falls squarely in the category of scummy.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        Your entire post reads as a cheap appeal to emotion, rather than a balanced view of app purchase methods on mobile devices. Let's turn this around for a second. Why are parents letting children use their very expensive and unlimited purchasing power mobile devices without supervision? If the kids have their own phones, why are they linked to their parent's account for purchases, instead of using the (very cool) allowance feature that is built into the store? There are a number of solutions to this problem, but arbitrarily deciding how many clicks away a purchase has to be or somesuch is near the bottom of the list.
- terrapinbear 15y ago
  I think any and all ads for kids apps should be in the Apple App Store or in the Android Market where they belong. I have no problem with selling apps for kids, but don't make it easy or even possible for them to buy one in your free app.
- plinkplonk 15y ago
  Question for IPhone/IPad users who buy apps for kids. I plan to gift a friend's son an Apple device of some kind and some games for his upcoming birthday, and I don't want him either bankrupting his dad (who will be registered as the owner of the device, and whose credit card details will be available to Apple/ITunes post registration (I think!) ) by accidentally buying stuff, or having to interrupt his games to dismiss in app purchases and so on. Is there a way to disable kids purchasing stuff accidentally? Is there a way of finding out which apps have in game purchases and which don't, without actually trying them out? I am willing to pay for good apps and don't expect free apps, but once I pay, I want the kid to have an ad free experience. I own no Apple Kit of any kind and have no experience buying stuff from the App Store. All help appreciated. Thanks in advance. Edit: Thanks for all the great replies, much appreciated.
  - antonyh 15y ago
    Use gift cards instead of registering a credit card. It's much easier to control the spend. I totally agree with 'ad-free experience'; if I can't tolerate adverts in apps then I wouldn't let children see them where they will distract from the app itself.
    - Splines 15y ago
      This is what we do for our son. From what I can remember it isn't obvious that you can set up an iTunes account without a credit card - we had to go into iTunes (on a PC) after-the-fact to remove the CC info.
  - huxley 15y ago
    Most apps that have in-app purchasing list "Top In-App Purchases" on the left-hand sidebar on the App Store listing. If you go into Settings > General > Restrictions, you can set restrictions on the use. * You can set a different PIN passcode Optional restrictions available: * installing and deleting apps * set age limits on apps * restrict in-app purchases You need to enter your Apple ID to make purchases but it's worth deciding on whether to give a 15 minute window for purchases without re-authentication or to require immediate re-authentication. If the kids know the Apple ID passwords and passcode, none of that will provide much protection.
- damoncali 15y ago
  You don't have kids, do you? Small kids don't really understand money. When a parent downloads a "free" game, they expect it to be free. When their kid starts crying because they can't do anything without buying something in app, it pisses the parent off. Or, once burned, you have this scenario: "Can I have this game, daddy? It says free!" "No, honey, it costs money". "But then why does it say free?" "Because they're telling lies to you to try to get you to buy it." You can't really avoid that conversation. If you want to charge me for a kid's app - PLEASE do it up front. I've spent more money buying my kids apps than I have buying myself apps. It's not the money - it's the deception that game makers try to push on my small children. I can do without that. *edit - the first sentence reads a lot snarkier than I intended. I should have left that out.
  - ja27 15y ago
    I've had that conversation. I'm so glad my youngest is 8 now. Yes, I wish all the apps that make their money from free + in-app purchases would just give me an option to buy the whole thing for a one-time price.
  - JeremiahNunn 15y ago
    I have a 3 and 4 year old, just for disclosure. Some games are free, limited demos. And the in-app purchase is for the full game. I like this mechanism, trying before I buy. Don't punish developers for being good people; just because a kid app has in-app purchase, doesn't necessarily mean it's a scummy attempt to trick kids into spending their parents money.
justinchen 15y ago
Also, don't pop up iOS notifications. 2 year olds can't read them and they're hard to dismiss.
ctdonath 15y ago
Make it easy for a kid to do what s/he wants, and hard to do what s/he doesn't. Anything which disrupts the play is bad, and the worst is transitions to the App Store (kid has no idea what is going on, just that something wonderful went away for no apparent reason). I'll pay for toddler versions which go all out to avoid anything but core simple fun play. If anything short of pressing Home means the kid has to hand me the tablet to "fix it", I want my money back.
terrapinbear 15y ago
I think this applies to any tablet app. Smart phone apps need to avoid having buttons near my thumb that I can accidentally push.
vibrunazo 15y ago
I find interesting his insistence that we should avoid buttons and menus on the bottom of the screen. This is extremely important, not only for kids apps. But I find that problem specially disturbing on the Android OS. Pretty much everyone I hand my Android Tablet to, when they're not used it. Will instantly hit the home or back button by accident after 5 seconds of holding. Then hand it back to me with a negative impression "I think I hit something bad". After I explain where the menus are, and how to avoid them. They'll often still repeat the mistake a few more times before either getting used to it, or just getting bored. So for our apps. I'd advise to avoid any page switching buttons in the bottom like it was the plague. Even if it's not a kids app.
- travisp 15y ago
  >Pretty much everyone I hand my Android Tablet to, when they're not used it. Will instantly hit the home or back button by accident after 5 seconds of holding. I've had a Galaxy Nexus for since early January. I like the phone, but I frequently hit the home or back button by accident at least once a day, often while typing (e.g. while trying to hit the space key). I let my son play with my Galaxy Nexus occasionally with a few apps appropriate for his age. Those buttons are a big problem. Things work out best when I hold the phone with him, with my hand strategically placed hovering over where the buttons will be in landscape mode. But an option to disable, or a hardware solution would be ideal.
marcusf 15y ago
One company that does this exceedingly well, me thinks, is Toca Boca. In a sense, they don't make iPad games, they make iPad toys. But kids respond to the toys, and enjoy them. Slightly unrelated, their CEO has a good talk on the way to figuring out that they should make kids toys: http://vimeo.com/30743193 http://vimeo.com/30743193
- rodhan 15y ago
  Completely agree - Toca Boca definitely have the right approach here. In our safe YouTube for kids app, DuckyTube, we tried hard to make the children's part of the app look fun while making the grownup parts of the app (selecting videos from YouTube, sharing with friends, etc.) look more businesslike so kids are drawn to click the duck and get back to the fun part. Similarly, if there is an error or whatever that we have to interrupt the app we make the "Continue" button look most interesting so children prefer to click it. Another bugbear of mine is children's apps that make it too difficult for parents to access the menus. One of our competitors requires you to go to the iPhone Settings page for the app, turn on the "Show Menu" option and return to the app to press the Menu button. Then when you are done you have to repeat the process to turn it off again!
antonyh 15y ago
Is there a way of stopping accidental taps on the lower part of the screen? Android is bad for this, with back/home buttons in the corner. Perhaps some sort of elasticated non-capacitive fabric barrier wrapped around the device that can be moved when it's needed?
- jff 15y ago
  Sounds like you're describing a sock :)
  - antonyh 15y ago
    Neat. That might just work... :-)
antonyh 15y ago
Also, which is better for kids - landscape or portrait? Has anyone seen a preference, or are all the apps landscape?
- petercooper 15y ago
  My daughter, a daily iPad user from about 9 months old (now 2.5!) exclusively uses it in a landscape orientation and I've never seen her try otherwise. That said, I'm the same unless one handed operation is desirable (no dirty thoughts, friends!)
  - antonyh 15y ago
    Interesting. I use my tablet landscape except if I'm reading an ebook. Maybe there's something more natural about landscape views, and I've been conditioned to read in portrait by printed material. On smaller devices I find portrait more natural, possibly due to the one-handed nature of use. Out of interest: do any of the apps she uses support landscape? Is she choosing that orientation or are the app designers making the decision?
    - petercooper 15y ago
      Most of the apps are landscape or are better in landscape (e.g. YouTube) so the decision may not be as natural as it seems at first glance. Another thing to consider, though, is that a high proportion of books for under 3s are in landscape too (in my experience at least). So maybe the book industry has also had this question crop up over the years too.. :-)
jessegavin 15y ago
I LOVE the points made in this post. I would two other observations: 1) Make sure your app has lightening fast response for touch events. Kids are smart, they expect that when they click a button, something should happen. If it takes over 250ms, my kid thinks it's broke and will start clicking it repeatedly. 2) Always use "onTouchDown" instead of "onTouchUp" when handling simple presses. My kid doesn't always release his finger after touching a button and when nothing happens, he thinks he needs to touch the button repeatedly. If the developers targeted the "Touch Down" event instead of "Touch Up" my kid wouldn't have learned this behavior.
antonyh 15y ago
The other aspect of design that needs to be taken into account is the size of the tap area - you don't have to make the buttons huge, but the responsive area should be larger for younger audiences and with more spacing between controls.
tocomment 15y ago
I would add that kids hold the side of the iPad. So don't count that as a touch. In fact my daughter hasn't figured out to use one finger so if you can hack the touch interface to ignore stray fingers or hands that would be great. Also if you ate presenting some kind of activity that two people could conceivabley do at once eg building blocks, moving shapes around allow two fingers to mover separate objects at once. The same thing with drawing.
- jarrettcoggin 15y ago
  My daughter does this all the time on my Kindle Fire and my WP7. She routinely has her thumb just sitting on the edge of the screen and she wonders why the game won't work for her, but works for me. You could program dead zones on the edges of the device in applications you develop, but that doesn't work for other apps.
S_A_P 15y ago
I think in app purchases for apps targeting users under 13 is a really bad idea. Even if there isn't some dark premise behind it, I feel like an asshole every time I tell my son "no" I wont buy you extra {whatever} for your game at just 2.99. Kids games should be reasonably priced(0-5 dollars) and not monetize with ads or upsells.
- ArtB 15y ago
  Sorry how is that even remotely reasonably priced? It has a limited market, that can't buy their product, that is hard to make engaging and appropriate. Either be willing to pay $15 a pop, be willing to accept in product advertising, in product upselling, are really basic (ie non custom story book artwork), or that they shouldn't exist at all. Frankly, sounds like you are asking just too much.
  - Tooluka 15y ago
    15$ for quality product is ok. Chaptered games/applications (iWork etc.) are ok. ADs are not. IAPs are not. This should be tattooed on every single iOS dev. PS: I actually wish there would be at least few 30-60$ games in the store. And not those crappy ports of gamepad/mouse games (shooters etc.) with unplayable controls. Or some good, but very old, not so polished ports of ports of classic games (FFT). It would be nice to play some great western RPG, with interesting story (not that boring save the world stuff), it should be turn based to adjust to device controls, some good graphics (not like those Top games from store) - look up Bastion on the PC, THIS is how AAA iPad games should look like. And no sequels. Please.
    - signalsignal 15y ago
      Tattooed? Sorry, but this comes across as a rant.
    - Tooluka 15y ago
      Can't reply to the comment below. About "tattooed" word - this is usually called irony. And it is a common phrase about "remembering things", I don't see what's so bad about saying that.
tvon 15y ago
I get irked enough when a non-kids app keeps prodding me towards in-app purchases, I'd be pretty livid if I found out a for-kids app was doing it.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  iAP is a great way to allow users to try before they buy. Don't confuse iAP with games that fundamentally handicap the game experience unless you continue paying money.
aculver 15y ago
When we developed Aeir Talk, an speech pathology app for children with Autism, we locked the setup screen (where parents can customize the cards, pictures, and audio) behind a nondescript "Setup" button in the title bar. When tapped, it does practically nothing: It changes to describe to parents how they can unlock the setup screen: "Press While Holding 'Please'", referring to a button on the other side of the screen that is part of the apps regular function. Compared to other touchable elements in the app, the button provides very little feedback, so kids largely ignore it. The gesture requires two hands, tapping two parts of the screen at the same time, so it's unlikely for children to end up in there by accident. You can see a video of this workflow at http://aeirtalk.com/ http://aeirtalk.com/ .
- chime 15y ago
  I did something similar with KType (an iPad app to help people with speech and motor disabilities communicate better). To get out of the app's main feature - full-screen keyboard - you have to hold the four corners of the iPad screen at the same time. It makes sure the user does not inadvertently get out of the keyboard view.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  I would buy this app in a split second if you had an android version.
seclorum 15y ago
I really, really, really wish there was some way to disable the Home button on my iPad. My 19-month old and 4-year old kids, who absolutely love to sit with me and play with the iPad, simply find it irresistible to press that button. And when we're watching a movie, its a sure-fire way to ruin the whole experience. If it were lockable so that it didn't do anything, they wouldn't press it. Come to think of it, the sliding-lock switch could be used for so much more. I just don't get why I can't lock the touch-screen so that it doesn't react to things - okay I understand why Apple want to keep touch enabled at all times, but why can't this be an option? (Is it an option and I'm just clueless to know? No jailbreak-solutions, please..) Anyway, that one issue is an almost definite deal-breaker for us when it comes time to have some iPad time. It doesn't take long before the kids lose interest, because they press that button, the app dies, and then they're in the home-screen game, where not much exciting stuff happens (unless they make the icons jiggle and press the little X's, then Daddy gets very excited..) That said, I like this article - because I'm working on a game for kids too, and the point about the bottom area of the screen being a no-no for navigation buttons is a really good point. My kids have learned to press anything and everything they can, and the kids game I'm working on is essentially a plethora of weird and fun things to press and interact with, but there will have to be some sort of trick for navigation that makes equal sense in the mind of a 4 year (and 2 year) old, as it does for a 40 year old. Talk about your tricky software problem!! :)
- Splines 15y ago
  I've seen child-oriented cases that have a hard cover over the home button. This was for an iPhone/iPod, but they probably exist for the iPad as well.
  - seclorum 15y ago
    Yeah, of course its the low-tech solution that makes sense, but I really believe this is a case where the Nanny-state like grip that Apple has over our iPads is not really delivering workable technology. Would it really "kill the cool" for Apple to add a pref about what the lock-switch can do: "Turn off Touch/Disable Home Button/Mute Music/Mute all/Lock Device" .. seems really, sorta lame.
celticninja 15y ago
If your app for children includes in-app purchases I will delete it as soon as I realise. At present this is just a frustration for my 2 year old as he doesnt understand why the game is no longer on the screen, but as he gets older he is more likely to try and pester me into buying. Not Going To Happen, plus I will leave a 1 star review of your app based on in app purchases alone. iPads and iPhones are not bought by children, they are ocassionally givent o children to use for a while, as such apps should not seek to bill parents because their kids pushed the worng button or I gave them the iPad too soon after downloading a new app (and thus entering the password).
- ElliotH 15y ago
  This is an advantage of the android style permission system in this case, the 'Services that Cost you Money' section could reveal this dodgy behavior quite easily.
  - mchanson 15y ago
    Apple could make this much more obvious than it is. Would be a good improvement to the app store.
    - RKearney 15y ago
      Are you kidding me? They make it extremely obvious. Apps with in-app purchases have a giant message on the App Store that, upon clicking, brings you to a list of things the application has for sale. Not to mention there's a restriction on iOS devices that allow you to turn off in-app purchases all together. It's like blaming Comcast because your child purchased expensive pay-per-view material when you could have easily blocked the channel.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  You leave a 1-star review because you can't be bothered to do some research ahead of time? Or did you assume that a free app, that otherwise was of decent quality, should really be free and the developer should be making content for you and your kid just for the love of it? In app purchase is a great way to let the user try the app before buying it. And there's a way to do it in kid apps that isn't unethical or taking advantage. I shudder to think of all the developers you hurt because you can't be trusted to use your ipad properly.
pessimist 15y ago
My 5 year old has been using his iPad since he was 4, and we've encountered all these problems and more. The funny thing though is that he learnt to work around all of them! Accidentally presses menu, after a couple of times he learns what to do. I think these obstacles of bad design are just more little puzzles for children. As parents we shouldnt obsess about having a perfect environment for our kids. On the other hand, what really bugs me is when educational apps can be easily gamed. The math bingo app was completely useless once my son figured out he could solve it by randomly banging on cells and would eventually win. A lot more effort should go in to designing apps so that the child learns something real, as opposed to just learning to play the game.
- coryl 15y ago
  You're right about apps improving their design, but it should be noted that game design for kids is kinda tricky. For example, what if in that math app, the player had "X" amount of lives, and every wrong answer cost a life? It might solve the issue of "keyboard smashing", but would create negative feedback, which is very inappropriate in this kind of game. Learning and with especially younger children, positive reinforcement tends to work far better than negative reinforcement. Every option has a cost.
  - ht_th 15y ago
    Negative feedback is easily turned into positive feedback and the other way around. Instead of losing points or lives when you fail, you could reward thoughtful actions. For example, when the number of steps to a solution is closer to the minimum number of steps needed to solve this problem it could be an indication of thoughtful actions and rewarded accordingly.
xxiao 15y ago
ipad kills kids' eyes. i buy real books instead.
- tocomment 15y ago
  Citation needed
dwinston 15y ago
The idea that "nagging works" is widely used to craft advertising for children's television (source: The Corporation (film)). Is the march toward such advertising in this nascent children's entertainment medium inexorable?
Dove 15y ago
I disagree slightly with the Affordance Is King point. You should identify the hot spots on the screen, but you should also reward childish exploration. I think most of the screen should be hot. Pretty much everything should be a target, and they should all be big. "Animals For Toddlers" (Eiswuxe) does this well (and is just plan excellent all around, by the way). I also disagree with the advice that arrows are best for pagination; I think he's overgeneralizing. My toddler is great at swipes, and still doesn't use arrows well. Broader testing may be a good idea here, and implementing multiple paradigms might be the answer. The bit about not putting the menu on the bottom of the screen is good, though. The kids apps I have on my (Android) tablet often disable the soft button menu and implement their own elsewhere. Of particular note is the pull-down-from-a-collapsed-bar-at-the-top pattern, which my son seems to know how to not get into. Or at least get out of. And that bit about ads and in-app payments is right on the money. I've bought a few apps for him after seeing he likes the free version, but the ones that result in him launching dating sites get uninstalled fast.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  Eiswuxe uses in app purchase.
stusmith1977 15y ago
Reminds me of a friend who used to run IT for a school, telling me the feature he looked for in educational software was greying out the 'print' button for 30 seconds after it had been clicked. Otherwise, the scenario was: kid clicks 'print', looks at printer, sees nothing coming out (maybe the printer is out of paper, or warming up, or whatever). So kid just keeps clicking 'print'. Result: when printer finally comes online, it wastes reams of paper printing dozens of copies of the document in the queue.
huhtenberg 15y ago
Spot on regarding the in-app purchases. I have a rule of giving 1 star rating to any kid's game that has them regardless of how well it's done and if my kids actually enjoy the non-gimmicky part. Milking parents by making their kids beg and nag them is an unethical way to earn money.
- ArtB 15y ago
  > Milking parents by making their kids beg and nag them is an unethical way to earn money. I believe that the primary way the market for children's toys and goods works, if you watch The Corporation they interview a psychologist that explicitly helps exploit this behaviour. So, you might find it unethical, but its the norm and avoiding it is like shopping for clothes that used no-sweatshop labour.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - jackpirate 15y ago
    >So, you might find it unethical, but its the norm and avoiding it is like shopping for clothes that used no-sweatshop labour. If he finds it unethical, it doesn't matter if it's the norm. He shouldn't do it. In both cases, there are clear and relatively easy alternatives.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  What is wrong with people here? In app purchase doens't have to be gimmicky, and rating with 1 star just because it has iAP is ridiculous. What about kids games that can be expanded on with modules. Do you really want to buy 5 different apps, one for color minigames, one for shapes, etc? Especially when they can all be linked together in one app, holding the child's attention better and providing a better experience?
  - eps 15y ago
    If the option for purchasing an extension stays out of the way, and doesn't just sit there begging to be clicked by those who click on everything, then and only then it's fine.
veidr 15y ago
I'm curious: don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all? I'm convinced that watching TV is harmful to a child's intellectual development. (And there's an established body of evidence to support that.) As a kid, I hated my hippie Montessori teacher mom for allowing me only one hour of TV per week as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s (elementary school; I usually chose the Duke boys, and later Knight Rider). But, as an adult, I cite it often as one of the things I admire most about the way she raised me (no limits on books, nor daytime outdoor play after school, nor building things), especially after coming to understand how much easier it is to set a precocious and hyper wild little monkey in front of the boob tube so the parents can get a couple hours of peace. I do think video games (especially good ones) are probably much less harmful than TV, and that they do even have some net positives for the user, in terms of developing various human abilities (cognitive and otherwise). But isn't two years old too young? Shouldn't kids of that age, instead of learning in-game physics, be learning real physics? Like with balls, marbles, and blocks, running and falling down, and not with animated honeypots and flying unicorns? My own kid won't be here for a few more months, so I'm not preaching; just honestly asking. I know little kids love iPad games... but they love eating sugar cubes, too.
- onemoreact 15y ago
  I think there may be significant benefits to working with these types of abstractions at a vary young age. Learning to code before I knew who to write in my native language might have harmed my ability to write in English but it created a level of comfort when dealing with programming code that may not be available to people who started later in life. Playing games may not seem productive, but the types of games children play do prepare them for more complex challenges later in life, and if anything I think computers will become more important over time. So, I suspect spending a few hours a week banging on an iPad is probably more useful than harmful for the average 2 year old.
- samspot 15y ago
  I'm with you, but it has to be a choice based on each parent's values. I personally LOVE video games, but my 2 year old hasn't even seen one yet, and I'm not trying to get her into them any time soon. Especially with TV I think there is plenty of time for kids to learn about it later, and they likely will not need my help to do so. Kids aren't missing anything by not playing games / watching TV, but if they spend too much of their time doing either of those they will miss out. My biggest concern is that I do not want media robbing my kids of their childhood.
jjcm 15y ago
This is great feedback. Right now I'm trying to finish our first book for http://non.io http://non.io (site isn't complete yet, but it will still give you an idea of the core concept), and one of my considerations was ensuring that the app was child friendly. At the end of the day, there will be options and components that are for parents only. Ensuring that a.) they're still prominent enough for parents to see at some point, and b.) that they're out of reach of children is a difficult balancing act. Does anyone know of or have any suggestions of apps who have done this correctly? I only have two components that are for parents - a donation form and an email signup form on the last page. Right now they're disabled until you select a checkbox that says "I'm an adult". Would love to get more feedback on this though.
adriand 15y ago
I actually had to get a refund from Apple for an in-app purchase my son made while using Talking Tom Cat (I since deleted that app and turned off in-app purchases). I've got two kids and what I would add to the observations listed in this article are as follows (these apply to any app that is intended for kids, but also apps where a significant section of the userbase might be kids - for example, my four-year-old is quite adept at Plants vs. Zombies, and given the depth of strategy utilized in that game I don't feel bad when he plays it): 1. No part of the application should require that you can read in order to use it or navigate it. 2. Don't pop up dialogs that a child cannot understand. For example, I watched as my child, while using an app intended for children, pressed "OK" on a dialog that asked if he wanted to turn on push notifications. That's just ridiculous! He'll press "OK" on any dialog because he just wants it to go away. 3. This really applies to all applications, but it becomes very apparent when watching a child use an app: the most desirable menu items should be larger and/or differently coloured than the least desirable ones. I.e. "Play" should be a big, brightly coloured button, while "Settings" should be small and tucked away. 4. Don't make it easy to do destructive things like delete accounts. This might seem obvious, but I have more than once opened an app only to find that my progress in it had vanished because my child had deleted my account (Plants vs. Zombies makes this too easy, for example). 5. On any app that has the potential to be enjoyed by both kids and adults, consider providing a kid-friendly mode that makes the game easier. 6. I don't know how difficult this is from a development perspective, but if possible, make the app resistant to having non-active fingers touching the screen while active fingers are attempting to use it. Kids will often grasp devices, especially phones, in such a way that fingers from (say) their left hand are touching the screen, and on some apps this causes them to cease responding to touch events from their other (right) hand. 7. If your app produces revenue through advertising, it probably shouldn't be marketed at young kids. Kids will press on the advertising and will just get frustrated when they arrive on a webpage somewhere, and adults will eventually delete the app because we don't want our kids feeling frustrated.
- ajlburke 15y ago
  With my diary app Remembary, I occasionally get empty emails submitted from the app's "Support Email" button in the help popover. The "?" button, the "Support Email" button, and the popup email's "Send" button are all in the top right part of the screen, so my best guess is that it's people's children tapping repeatedly in the top right area of the iPad. Good thing I don't have anything particularly destructive up there. So thinking "what about the children?" is a good idea when doing any kind of app layout. It's good to make sure that repeatedly tapping or clicking on one part of the screen doesn't trigger deletions or other dangerous side effects. In my case, it's nice to get an email every so often that doesn't have any calls to action in it.
orbitingpluto 15y ago
I've worked on a children's app for Android where the client wanted advertisements moved from the main screen (where parents would see it) to the content screen (accidental clicks only from children). That change in design made the client "dead to me" especially when they next wanted me to work on another child app where the business model was: Fooling children into initiating SMS charges against the phone.
mpstx 15y ago
A plea to parents purchasing iPad Apps for children: Stop buying apps that do stuff like this. If you see that an app has a $99 in-app berry purchase, don't download or buy it. If you see that an app encourages children to poke and sling animals and destroy things, don't buy it. Do a small bit of research to see if the app was designed with your child's age in mind. Buy apps from trusted sources like http://tocaboca.com/ http://tocaboca.com/ , http://piikeastreet.com http://piikeastreet.com (disclosure:that's me), http://www.duckduckmoosedesign.com/ http://www.duckduckmoosedesign.com/ , etc. If you buy more of the good stuff, there will be more good stuff to buy!
- gbhn 15y ago
  Thanks! I've been a bit frustrated at the difficulty in finding good engaging games for young kids. My son is older and there's quite a bit he enjoys -- puzzles, world-building, etc. For my daughter, who's younger, there seems precious little.
  - mpstx 15y ago
    Totally sympathize. It can indeed be frustrating. The top lists aren't exactly structured to facilitate finding the best apps for a kid given their current developmental stage. You can google some resources and lists online, find some curated marketplaces that are making lists of apps appropriate for building certain skills, and appropriate for certain ages, but it's all an extra step outside the extreme convenience of the on-device app store.
deleted 15y ago
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coob 15y ago
On in-app purchases: We have an app that is targeted at kids aged 3-5 (I don't work directly on it). It is currently in the top 10 free education apps and regularly holds a spot in the top 5 grossing education apps in the UK (we currently only have UK audio). It has an average rating of 4.5 stars, with over 100 genuine 5 star reviews from satisfied parents. The app is split into 10 topics, with the first free. The rest can be unlocked for $13.99. It uses in-app purchasing as providing the app for free with the first section available to all is the best way we can show off our product. It isn't targeted at the kid, it is aimed at the parent of the child. In no way do we try and trick anyone into a purchase. This approach has been overwhelmingly successful. I honestly think the app would've got nowhere if we'd stuck it up there as a paid app for $13.99. We could have gone for separate apps, but that's much harder to maintain and market (trust me - the product I work on has over 100 versions on the app store, we're migrating to 1 with iAP).
mwidarto 15y ago
I develop an educational app geared for kids and just like some of the people here. I dislike ads, in app purchase, external link etc so I made sure that my app doesn't have any of those and price it at $0.99. I keep updating it based on user feedback to make the app better. It's good to read that there are a lot of parent here that say they won't purchase any app with ads and/or inapp purchases for their kids but I think majority of the people don't care. Most of the top 15 apps in my app category/subject are free with ads and/or in app purchases. They can afford to make it free because they make money from ads/in-app purchases and because they're free they get a lot more download that keeps their ranking higher burying app like mine. It's hard to compete in that kind of condition but I for now, I can't see my self using ads/in-app purchases in any of my app. I will try to compete by bringing better qualities apps.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  There are ways to do in-app purchases for kid apps that aren't unethical. In fact, allowing people to try your app before buying it is a very ethical thing to do. Don't limit yourself unnecessarily, and don't assume kid apps with iAP must be from shady developers.
  - jes5199 15y ago
    I know you feel like everyone is being unreasonable about this, but instead of trying to change their minds, consider it market research: parents on hacker news overwhelmingly distrust iAP, and maybe that means some other form of try-before-you-buy would be more appropriate for kids' apps.
    - mwidarto 15y ago
      I believe windows phone market place and android allow you to do some sort of trial but I don't think you can do that in apple app store. I'm not 100% sure about this so please correct me if I am wrong.
  - mwidarto 15y ago
    You are correct. There are a lot of kid apps with iAP that offer great value such as additional levels etc. I purchased some my self. It's the smurfberry kind of iAP that I don't like.
Kilimanjaro 15y ago
I always asked myself why there isn't a KIDS category in the AppStore.
thesis 15y ago
The in app purchasing on Androids needs to be stopped or at the very least prompt a password entry. I downloaded Bug Village (Glu Mobile) on my Android for my 4 year old son, and about 2 hours later I noticed around $320 on 3 purchases (I think 2 149.99 and 1 19.99 or something around that). I contacted Glu immediately asking for it to be voided/refunded. They told me to contact my bank and charge them back. I hope they enjoyed the chargeback fees. Now nothing gets downloaded with in app purchasing in it.
mathattack 15y ago
Great post! The comments about persuasive ads hits home. Another frustration is sales messages on the startup screen. Once a game requires too much parental interaction to back out purchase requests I delete it.
jljacques 15y ago
To all those who are claiming that the use of iPads will be detrimental to the health of their children. Please read this article: http://techland.time.com/2012/02/22/new-study-finds-ipads-in-the-classroom-boost-test-scores/ http://techland.time.com/2012/02/22/new-study-finds-ipads-in...

463 points by pascal07 15y ago

loftwyr 15y ago

My only addition is to ask for a band on scroll bars in a kids app, especially on the bottom of the page.

tnorthcutt 15y ago
Do you mean a "ban" on scroll bars?
- loftwyr 15y ago
  Yes, my fingers don't always type what I expect...

ja27 15y ago

Generally good advice. Play-testing with young kids is a big help. I also don't like an app that has the kid shake the iPad (or iPhone) a lot. I'm torn on the "Don't trick my kids into buying stuff" one. I've seen a lot of crappy apps (and even well-built Smurfy-Smurf ones) that are just funnels to in-app purchases. But I've also seen parents leave outraged reviews because a developer dares to have in-app purchases for additional content in his free app. Or they turn their nose up at paying $1.99 for an iPad app. The world doesn't owe you free high-quality kids' apps. Go ahead and funnel your kid's allowance into iTunes credit now and use it to get them to clean their room.

huggyface 15y ago
Or they turn their nose up at paying $1.99 for an iPad app I think that's out of context to even bring up. The complaint is scummy in-app purchases and they are a scourge mostly meant to exploit the easy clicking of kids with the default "no barrier" purchase mechanism. I've uninstalled and forever purged several apps for exactly this monetizing strategy. I have zero problem or hesitation paying up upfront, honest price for an app.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  >mostly meant to exploit the easy clicking of kids with the default "no barrier" purchase mechanism. How do you define a "scummy in-app purchase that's a scourge meant to exploit kids" from a non-scummy in app purchase?
  - scdc 15y ago
    If it's designed for young kids, and the in-app purchase is reachable in 1 or 2 taps, it is scummy.
  - ja27 15y ago
    If there's a $1.99 "20 additional game levels" after you finish the first 20, that's not scummy. If there's a $99 in-app purchase (Basket of Smurfberries), that's scummy.
    - ArtB 15y ago
      Sadly, that is just people responding to the market conditions. Most people want things near to free, so the initial price must be low or else you'll get ignored. Then, you need some whales to actually generate revenue. Surely there is some CEO you'll happily pay $99 bucks to shut his kids up.
      - plink 15y ago
        Market conditions can be constrained by regulations such as Apple's prohibition against pornography. Eighteenth century USA excused slavery as the price of doing business before government regulations altered those market conditions. Prior to such changes the practice was no less scummy. In-App kid-chiseling falls squarely in the category of scummy.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        Your entire post reads as a cheap appeal to emotion, rather than a balanced view of app purchase methods on mobile devices. Let's turn this around for a second. Why are parents letting children use their very expensive and unlimited purchasing power mobile devices without supervision? If the kids have their own phones, why are they linked to their parent's account for purchases, instead of using the (very cool) allowance feature that is built into the store? There are a number of solutions to this problem, but arbitrarily deciding how many clicks away a purchase has to be or somesuch is near the bottom of the list.
terrapinbear 15y ago
I think any and all ads for kids apps should be in the Apple App Store or in the Android Market where they belong. I have no problem with selling apps for kids, but don't make it easy or even possible for them to buy one in your free app.
plinkplonk 15y ago
Question for IPhone/IPad users who buy apps for kids. I plan to gift a friend's son an Apple device of some kind and some games for his upcoming birthday, and I don't want him either bankrupting his dad (who will be registered as the owner of the device, and whose credit card details will be available to Apple/ITunes post registration (I think!) ) by accidentally buying stuff, or having to interrupt his games to dismiss in app purchases and so on. Is there a way to disable kids purchasing stuff accidentally? Is there a way of finding out which apps have in game purchases and which don't, without actually trying them out? I am willing to pay for good apps and don't expect free apps, but once I pay, I want the kid to have an ad free experience. I own no Apple Kit of any kind and have no experience buying stuff from the App Store. All help appreciated. Thanks in advance. Edit: Thanks for all the great replies, much appreciated.
- antonyh 15y ago
  Use gift cards instead of registering a credit card. It's much easier to control the spend. I totally agree with 'ad-free experience'; if I can't tolerate adverts in apps then I wouldn't let children see them where they will distract from the app itself.
  - Splines 15y ago
    This is what we do for our son. From what I can remember it isn't obvious that you can set up an iTunes account without a credit card - we had to go into iTunes (on a PC) after-the-fact to remove the CC info.
- huxley 15y ago
  Most apps that have in-app purchasing list "Top In-App Purchases" on the left-hand sidebar on the App Store listing. If you go into Settings > General > Restrictions, you can set restrictions on the use. * You can set a different PIN passcode Optional restrictions available: * installing and deleting apps * set age limits on apps * restrict in-app purchases You need to enter your Apple ID to make purchases but it's worth deciding on whether to give a 15 minute window for purchases without re-authentication or to require immediate re-authentication. If the kids know the Apple ID passwords and passcode, none of that will provide much protection.
damoncali 15y ago
You don't have kids, do you? Small kids don't really understand money. When a parent downloads a "free" game, they expect it to be free. When their kid starts crying because they can't do anything without buying something in app, it pisses the parent off. Or, once burned, you have this scenario: "Can I have this game, daddy? It says free!" "No, honey, it costs money". "But then why does it say free?" "Because they're telling lies to you to try to get you to buy it." You can't really avoid that conversation. If you want to charge me for a kid's app - PLEASE do it up front. I've spent more money buying my kids apps than I have buying myself apps. It's not the money - it's the deception that game makers try to push on my small children. I can do without that. *edit - the first sentence reads a lot snarkier than I intended. I should have left that out.
- ja27 15y ago
  I've had that conversation. I'm so glad my youngest is 8 now. Yes, I wish all the apps that make their money from free + in-app purchases would just give me an option to buy the whole thing for a one-time price.
- JeremiahNunn 15y ago
  I have a 3 and 4 year old, just for disclosure. Some games are free, limited demos. And the in-app purchase is for the full game. I like this mechanism, trying before I buy. Don't punish developers for being good people; just because a kid app has in-app purchase, doesn't necessarily mean it's a scummy attempt to trick kids into spending their parents money.

justinchen 15y ago

Also, don't pop up iOS notifications. 2 year olds can't read them and they're hard to dismiss.

ctdonath 15y ago

Make it easy for a kid to do what s/he wants, and hard to do what s/he doesn't. Anything which disrupts the play is bad, and the worst is transitions to the App Store (kid has no idea what is going on, just that something wonderful went away for no apparent reason). I'll pay for toddler versions which go all out to avoid anything but core simple fun play. If anything short of pressing Home means the kid has to hand me the tablet to "fix it", I want my money back.

terrapinbear 15y ago

I think this applies to any tablet app. Smart phone apps need to avoid having buttons near my thumb that I can accidentally push.

vibrunazo 15y ago

I find interesting his insistence that we should avoid buttons and menus on the bottom of the screen. This is extremely important, not only for kids apps. But I find that problem specially disturbing on the Android OS. Pretty much everyone I hand my Android Tablet to, when they're not used it. Will instantly hit the home or back button by accident after 5 seconds of holding. Then hand it back to me with a negative impression "I think I hit something bad". After I explain where the menus are, and how to avoid them. They'll often still repeat the mistake a few more times before either getting used to it, or just getting bored. So for our apps. I'd advise to avoid any page switching buttons in the bottom like it was the plague. Even if it's not a kids app.

travisp 15y ago
>Pretty much everyone I hand my Android Tablet to, when they're not used it. Will instantly hit the home or back button by accident after 5 seconds of holding. I've had a Galaxy Nexus for since early January. I like the phone, but I frequently hit the home or back button by accident at least once a day, often while typing (e.g. while trying to hit the space key). I let my son play with my Galaxy Nexus occasionally with a few apps appropriate for his age. Those buttons are a big problem. Things work out best when I hold the phone with him, with my hand strategically placed hovering over where the buttons will be in landscape mode. But an option to disable, or a hardware solution would be ideal.

marcusf 15y ago

One company that does this exceedingly well, me thinks, is Toca Boca. In a sense, they don't make iPad games, they make iPad toys. But kids respond to the toys, and enjoy them. Slightly unrelated, their CEO has a good talk on the way to figuring out that they should make kids toys: http://vimeo.com/30743193 http://vimeo.com/30743193

rodhan 15y ago
Completely agree - Toca Boca definitely have the right approach here. In our safe YouTube for kids app, DuckyTube, we tried hard to make the children's part of the app look fun while making the grownup parts of the app (selecting videos from YouTube, sharing with friends, etc.) look more businesslike so kids are drawn to click the duck and get back to the fun part. Similarly, if there is an error or whatever that we have to interrupt the app we make the "Continue" button look most interesting so children prefer to click it. Another bugbear of mine is children's apps that make it too difficult for parents to access the menus. One of our competitors requires you to go to the iPhone Settings page for the app, turn on the "Show Menu" option and return to the app to press the Menu button. Then when you are done you have to repeat the process to turn it off again!

antonyh 15y ago

Is there a way of stopping accidental taps on the lower part of the screen? Android is bad for this, with back/home buttons in the corner. Perhaps some sort of elasticated non-capacitive fabric barrier wrapped around the device that can be moved when it's needed?

jff 15y ago
Sounds like you're describing a sock :)
- antonyh 15y ago
  Neat. That might just work... :-)

antonyh 15y ago

Also, which is better for kids - landscape or portrait? Has anyone seen a preference, or are all the apps landscape?

petercooper 15y ago
My daughter, a daily iPad user from about 9 months old (now 2.5!) exclusively uses it in a landscape orientation and I've never seen her try otherwise. That said, I'm the same unless one handed operation is desirable (no dirty thoughts, friends!)
- antonyh 15y ago
  Interesting. I use my tablet landscape except if I'm reading an ebook. Maybe there's something more natural about landscape views, and I've been conditioned to read in portrait by printed material. On smaller devices I find portrait more natural, possibly due to the one-handed nature of use. Out of interest: do any of the apps she uses support landscape? Is she choosing that orientation or are the app designers making the decision?
  - petercooper 15y ago
    Most of the apps are landscape or are better in landscape (e.g. YouTube) so the decision may not be as natural as it seems at first glance. Another thing to consider, though, is that a high proportion of books for under 3s are in landscape too (in my experience at least). So maybe the book industry has also had this question crop up over the years too.. :-)

jessegavin 15y ago

I LOVE the points made in this post. I would two other observations: 1) Make sure your app has lightening fast response for touch events. Kids are smart, they expect that when they click a button, something should happen. If it takes over 250ms, my kid thinks it's broke and will start clicking it repeatedly. 2) Always use "onTouchDown" instead of "onTouchUp" when handling simple presses. My kid doesn't always release his finger after touching a button and when nothing happens, he thinks he needs to touch the button repeatedly. If the developers targeted the "Touch Down" event instead of "Touch Up" my kid wouldn't have learned this behavior.

antonyh 15y ago

The other aspect of design that needs to be taken into account is the size of the tap area - you don't have to make the buttons huge, but the responsive area should be larger for younger audiences and with more spacing between controls.

tocomment 15y ago

I would add that kids hold the side of the iPad. So don't count that as a touch. In fact my daughter hasn't figured out to use one finger so if you can hack the touch interface to ignore stray fingers or hands that would be great. Also if you ate presenting some kind of activity that two people could conceivabley do at once eg building blocks, moving shapes around allow two fingers to mover separate objects at once. The same thing with drawing.

jarrettcoggin 15y ago
My daughter does this all the time on my Kindle Fire and my WP7. She routinely has her thumb just sitting on the edge of the screen and she wonders why the game won't work for her, but works for me. You could program dead zones on the edges of the device in applications you develop, but that doesn't work for other apps.

S_A_P 15y ago

I think in app purchases for apps targeting users under 13 is a really bad idea. Even if there isn't some dark premise behind it, I feel like an asshole every time I tell my son "no" I wont buy you extra {whatever} for your game at just 2.99. Kids games should be reasonably priced(0-5 dollars) and not monetize with ads or upsells.

ArtB 15y ago
Sorry how is that even remotely reasonably priced? It has a limited market, that can't buy their product, that is hard to make engaging and appropriate. Either be willing to pay $15 a pop, be willing to accept in product advertising, in product upselling, are really basic (ie non custom story book artwork), or that they shouldn't exist at all. Frankly, sounds like you are asking just too much.
- Tooluka 15y ago
  15$ for quality product is ok. Chaptered games/applications (iWork etc.) are ok. ADs are not. IAPs are not. This should be tattooed on every single iOS dev. PS: I actually wish there would be at least few 30-60$ games in the store. And not those crappy ports of gamepad/mouse games (shooters etc.) with unplayable controls. Or some good, but very old, not so polished ports of ports of classic games (FFT). It would be nice to play some great western RPG, with interesting story (not that boring save the world stuff), it should be turn based to adjust to device controls, some good graphics (not like those Top games from store) - look up Bastion on the PC, THIS is how AAA iPad games should look like. And no sequels. Please.
  - signalsignal 15y ago
    Tattooed? Sorry, but this comes across as a rant.
  - Tooluka 15y ago
    Can't reply to the comment below. About "tattooed" word - this is usually called irony. And it is a common phrase about "remembering things", I don't see what's so bad about saying that.

tvon 15y ago

I get irked enough when a non-kids app keeps prodding me towards in-app purchases, I'd be pretty livid if I found out a for-kids app was doing it.

JeremiahNunn 15y ago
iAP is a great way to allow users to try before they buy. Don't confuse iAP with games that fundamentally handicap the game experience unless you continue paying money.

aculver 15y ago

When we developed Aeir Talk, an speech pathology app for children with Autism, we locked the setup screen (where parents can customize the cards, pictures, and audio) behind a nondescript "Setup" button in the title bar. When tapped, it does practically nothing: It changes to describe to parents how they can unlock the setup screen: "Press While Holding 'Please'", referring to a button on the other side of the screen that is part of the apps regular function. Compared to other touchable elements in the app, the button provides very little feedback, so kids largely ignore it. The gesture requires two hands, tapping two parts of the screen at the same time, so it's unlikely for children to end up in there by accident. You can see a video of this workflow at http://aeirtalk.com/ http://aeirtalk.com/ .

chime 15y ago
I did something similar with KType (an iPad app to help people with speech and motor disabilities communicate better). To get out of the app's main feature - full-screen keyboard - you have to hold the four corners of the iPad screen at the same time. It makes sure the user does not inadvertently get out of the keyboard view.
lotharbot 15y ago
I would buy this app in a split second if you had an android version.

seclorum 15y ago

I really, really, really wish there was some way to disable the Home button on my iPad. My 19-month old and 4-year old kids, who absolutely love to sit with me and play with the iPad, simply find it irresistible to press that button. And when we're watching a movie, its a sure-fire way to ruin the whole experience. If it were lockable so that it didn't do anything, they wouldn't press it. Come to think of it, the sliding-lock switch could be used for so much more. I just don't get why I can't lock the touch-screen so that it doesn't react to things - okay I understand why Apple want to keep touch enabled at all times, but why can't this be an option? (Is it an option and I'm just clueless to know? No jailbreak-solutions, please..) Anyway, that one issue is an almost definite deal-breaker for us when it comes time to have some iPad time. It doesn't take long before the kids lose interest, because they press that button, the app dies, and then they're in the home-screen game, where not much exciting stuff happens (unless they make the icons jiggle and press the little X's, then Daddy gets very excited..) That said, I like this article - because I'm working on a game for kids too, and the point about the bottom area of the screen being a no-no for navigation buttons is a really good point. My kids have learned to press anything and everything they can, and the kids game I'm working on is essentially a plethora of weird and fun things to press and interact with, but there will have to be some sort of trick for navigation that makes equal sense in the mind of a 4 year (and 2 year) old, as it does for a 40 year old. Talk about your tricky software problem!! :)

Splines 15y ago
I've seen child-oriented cases that have a hard cover over the home button. This was for an iPhone/iPod, but they probably exist for the iPad as well.
- seclorum 15y ago
  Yeah, of course its the low-tech solution that makes sense, but I really believe this is a case where the Nanny-state like grip that Apple has over our iPads is not really delivering workable technology. Would it really "kill the cool" for Apple to add a pref about what the lock-switch can do: "Turn off Touch/Disable Home Button/Mute Music/Mute all/Lock Device" .. seems really, sorta lame.

celticninja 15y ago

If your app for children includes in-app purchases I will delete it as soon as I realise. At present this is just a frustration for my 2 year old as he doesnt understand why the game is no longer on the screen, but as he gets older he is more likely to try and pester me into buying. Not Going To Happen, plus I will leave a 1 star review of your app based on in app purchases alone. iPads and iPhones are not bought by children, they are ocassionally givent o children to use for a while, as such apps should not seek to bill parents because their kids pushed the worng button or I gave them the iPad too soon after downloading a new app (and thus entering the password).

ElliotH 15y ago
This is an advantage of the android style permission system in this case, the 'Services that Cost you Money' section could reveal this dodgy behavior quite easily.
- mchanson 15y ago
  Apple could make this much more obvious than it is. Would be a good improvement to the app store.
  - RKearney 15y ago
    Are you kidding me? They make it extremely obvious. Apps with in-app purchases have a giant message on the App Store that, upon clicking, brings you to a list of things the application has for sale. Not to mention there's a restriction on iOS devices that allow you to turn off in-app purchases all together. It's like blaming Comcast because your child purchased expensive pay-per-view material when you could have easily blocked the channel.
JeremiahNunn 15y ago
You leave a 1-star review because you can't be bothered to do some research ahead of time? Or did you assume that a free app, that otherwise was of decent quality, should really be free and the developer should be making content for you and your kid just for the love of it? In app purchase is a great way to let the user try the app before buying it. And there's a way to do it in kid apps that isn't unethical or taking advantage. I shudder to think of all the developers you hurt because you can't be trusted to use your ipad properly.

pessimist 15y ago

My 5 year old has been using his iPad since he was 4, and we've encountered all these problems and more. The funny thing though is that he learnt to work around all of them! Accidentally presses menu, after a couple of times he learns what to do. I think these obstacles of bad design are just more little puzzles for children. As parents we shouldnt obsess about having a perfect environment for our kids. On the other hand, what really bugs me is when educational apps can be easily gamed. The math bingo app was completely useless once my son figured out he could solve it by randomly banging on cells and would eventually win. A lot more effort should go in to designing apps so that the child learns something real, as opposed to just learning to play the game.

coryl 15y ago
You're right about apps improving their design, but it should be noted that game design for kids is kinda tricky. For example, what if in that math app, the player had "X" amount of lives, and every wrong answer cost a life? It might solve the issue of "keyboard smashing", but would create negative feedback, which is very inappropriate in this kind of game. Learning and with especially younger children, positive reinforcement tends to work far better than negative reinforcement. Every option has a cost.
- ht_th 15y ago
  Negative feedback is easily turned into positive feedback and the other way around. Instead of losing points or lives when you fail, you could reward thoughtful actions. For example, when the number of steps to a solution is closer to the minimum number of steps needed to solve this problem it could be an indication of thoughtful actions and rewarded accordingly.

xxiao 15y ago

ipad kills kids' eyes. i buy real books instead.

tocomment 15y ago
Citation needed

dwinston 15y ago

The idea that "nagging works" is widely used to craft advertising for children's television (source: The Corporation (film)). Is the march toward such advertising in this nascent children's entertainment medium inexorable?

Dove 15y ago

I disagree slightly with the Affordance Is King point. You should identify the hot spots on the screen, but you should also reward childish exploration. I think most of the screen should be hot. Pretty much everything should be a target, and they should all be big. "Animals For Toddlers" (Eiswuxe) does this well (and is just plan excellent all around, by the way). I also disagree with the advice that arrows are best for pagination; I think he's overgeneralizing. My toddler is great at swipes, and still doesn't use arrows well. Broader testing may be a good idea here, and implementing multiple paradigms might be the answer. The bit about not putting the menu on the bottom of the screen is good, though. The kids apps I have on my (Android) tablet often disable the soft button menu and implement their own elsewhere. Of particular note is the pull-down-from-a-collapsed-bar-at-the-top pattern, which my son seems to know how to not get into. Or at least get out of. And that bit about ads and in-app payments is right on the money. I've bought a few apps for him after seeing he likes the free version, but the ones that result in him launching dating sites get uninstalled fast.

JeremiahNunn 15y ago
Eiswuxe uses in app purchase.

stusmith1977 15y ago

Reminds me of a friend who used to run IT for a school, telling me the feature he looked for in educational software was greying out the 'print' button for 30 seconds after it had been clicked. Otherwise, the scenario was: kid clicks 'print', looks at printer, sees nothing coming out (maybe the printer is out of paper, or warming up, or whatever). So kid just keeps clicking 'print'. Result: when printer finally comes online, it wastes reams of paper printing dozens of copies of the document in the queue.

huhtenberg 15y ago

Spot on regarding the in-app purchases. I have a rule of giving 1 star rating to any kid's game that has them regardless of how well it's done and if my kids actually enjoy the non-gimmicky part. Milking parents by making their kids beg and nag them is an unethical way to earn money.

ArtB 15y ago
> Milking parents by making their kids beg and nag them is an unethical way to earn money. I believe that the primary way the market for children's toys and goods works, if you watch The Corporation they interview a psychologist that explicitly helps exploit this behaviour. So, you might find it unethical, but its the norm and avoiding it is like shopping for clothes that used no-sweatshop labour.
- deleted 15y ago
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- jackpirate 15y ago
  >So, you might find it unethical, but its the norm and avoiding it is like shopping for clothes that used no-sweatshop labour. If he finds it unethical, it doesn't matter if it's the norm. He shouldn't do it. In both cases, there are clear and relatively easy alternatives.
JeremiahNunn 15y ago
What is wrong with people here? In app purchase doens't have to be gimmicky, and rating with 1 star just because it has iAP is ridiculous. What about kids games that can be expanded on with modules. Do you really want to buy 5 different apps, one for color minigames, one for shapes, etc? Especially when they can all be linked together in one app, holding the child's attention better and providing a better experience?
- eps 15y ago
  If the option for purchasing an extension stays out of the way, and doesn't just sit there begging to be clicked by those who click on everything, then and only then it's fine.

veidr 15y ago

I'm curious: don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all? I'm convinced that watching TV is harmful to a child's intellectual development. (And there's an established body of evidence to support that.) As a kid, I hated my hippie Montessori teacher mom for allowing me only one hour of TV per week as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s (elementary school; I usually chose the Duke boys, and later Knight Rider). But, as an adult, I cite it often as one of the things I admire most about the way she raised me (no limits on books, nor daytime outdoor play after school, nor building things), especially after coming to understand how much easier it is to set a precocious and hyper wild little monkey in front of the boob tube so the parents can get a couple hours of peace. I do think video games (especially good ones) are probably much less harmful than TV, and that they do even have some net positives for the user, in terms of developing various human abilities (cognitive and otherwise). But isn't two years old too young? Shouldn't kids of that age, instead of learning in-game physics, be learning real physics? Like with balls, marbles, and blocks, running and falling down, and not with animated honeypots and flying unicorns? My own kid won't be here for a few more months, so I'm not preaching; just honestly asking. I know little kids love iPad games... but they love eating sugar cubes, too.

onemoreact 15y ago
I think there may be significant benefits to working with these types of abstractions at a vary young age. Learning to code before I knew who to write in my native language might have harmed my ability to write in English but it created a level of comfort when dealing with programming code that may not be available to people who started later in life. Playing games may not seem productive, but the types of games children play do prepare them for more complex challenges later in life, and if anything I think computers will become more important over time. So, I suspect spending a few hours a week banging on an iPad is probably more useful than harmful for the average 2 year old.
samspot 15y ago
I'm with you, but it has to be a choice based on each parent's values. I personally LOVE video games, but my 2 year old hasn't even seen one yet, and I'm not trying to get her into them any time soon. Especially with TV I think there is plenty of time for kids to learn about it later, and they likely will not need my help to do so. Kids aren't missing anything by not playing games / watching TV, but if they spend too much of their time doing either of those they will miss out. My biggest concern is that I do not want media robbing my kids of their childhood.

jjcm 15y ago

This is great feedback. Right now I'm trying to finish our first book for http://non.io http://non.io (site isn't complete yet, but it will still give you an idea of the core concept), and one of my considerations was ensuring that the app was child friendly. At the end of the day, there will be options and components that are for parents only. Ensuring that a.) they're still prominent enough for parents to see at some point, and b.) that they're out of reach of children is a difficult balancing act. Does anyone know of or have any suggestions of apps who have done this correctly? I only have two components that are for parents - a donation form and an email signup form on the last page. Right now they're disabled until you select a checkbox that says "I'm an adult". Would love to get more feedback on this though.

adriand 15y ago

I actually had to get a refund from Apple for an in-app purchase my son made while using Talking Tom Cat (I since deleted that app and turned off in-app purchases). I've got two kids and what I would add to the observations listed in this article are as follows (these apply to any app that is intended for kids, but also apps where a significant section of the userbase might be kids - for example, my four-year-old is quite adept at Plants vs. Zombies, and given the depth of strategy utilized in that game I don't feel bad when he plays it): 1. No part of the application should require that you can read in order to use it or navigate it. 2. Don't pop up dialogs that a child cannot understand. For example, I watched as my child, while using an app intended for children, pressed "OK" on a dialog that asked if he wanted to turn on push notifications. That's just ridiculous! He'll press "OK" on any dialog because he just wants it to go away. 3. This really applies to all applications, but it becomes very apparent when watching a child use an app: the most desirable menu items should be larger and/or differently coloured than the least desirable ones. I.e. "Play" should be a big, brightly coloured button, while "Settings" should be small and tucked away. 4. Don't make it easy to do destructive things like delete accounts. This might seem obvious, but I have more than once opened an app only to find that my progress in it had vanished because my child had deleted my account (Plants vs. Zombies makes this too easy, for example). 5. On any app that has the potential to be enjoyed by both kids and adults, consider providing a kid-friendly mode that makes the game easier. 6. I don't know how difficult this is from a development perspective, but if possible, make the app resistant to having non-active fingers touching the screen while active fingers are attempting to use it. Kids will often grasp devices, especially phones, in such a way that fingers from (say) their left hand are touching the screen, and on some apps this causes them to cease responding to touch events from their other (right) hand. 7. If your app produces revenue through advertising, it probably shouldn't be marketed at young kids. Kids will press on the advertising and will just get frustrated when they arrive on a webpage somewhere, and adults will eventually delete the app because we don't want our kids feeling frustrated.

ajlburke 15y ago
With my diary app Remembary, I occasionally get empty emails submitted from the app's "Support Email" button in the help popover. The "?" button, the "Support Email" button, and the popup email's "Send" button are all in the top right part of the screen, so my best guess is that it's people's children tapping repeatedly in the top right area of the iPad. Good thing I don't have anything particularly destructive up there. So thinking "what about the children?" is a good idea when doing any kind of app layout. It's good to make sure that repeatedly tapping or clicking on one part of the screen doesn't trigger deletions or other dangerous side effects. In my case, it's nice to get an email every so often that doesn't have any calls to action in it.

orbitingpluto 15y ago

I've worked on a children's app for Android where the client wanted advertisements moved from the main screen (where parents would see it) to the content screen (accidental clicks only from children). That change in design made the client "dead to me" especially when they next wanted me to work on another child app where the business model was: Fooling children into initiating SMS charges against the phone.

mpstx 15y ago

A plea to parents purchasing iPad Apps for children: Stop buying apps that do stuff like this. If you see that an app has a $99 in-app berry purchase, don't download or buy it. If you see that an app encourages children to poke and sling animals and destroy things, don't buy it. Do a small bit of research to see if the app was designed with your child's age in mind. Buy apps from trusted sources like http://tocaboca.com/ http://tocaboca.com/ , http://piikeastreet.com http://piikeastreet.com (disclosure:that's me), http://www.duckduckmoosedesign.com/ http://www.duckduckmoosedesign.com/ , etc. If you buy more of the good stuff, there will be more good stuff to buy!

gbhn 15y ago
Thanks! I've been a bit frustrated at the difficulty in finding good engaging games for young kids. My son is older and there's quite a bit he enjoys -- puzzles, world-building, etc. For my daughter, who's younger, there seems precious little.
- mpstx 15y ago
  Totally sympathize. It can indeed be frustrating. The top lists aren't exactly structured to facilitate finding the best apps for a kid given their current developmental stage. You can google some resources and lists online, find some curated marketplaces that are making lists of apps appropriate for building certain skills, and appropriate for certain ages, but it's all an extra step outside the extreme convenience of the on-device app store.

deleted 15y ago

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coob 15y ago

On in-app purchases: We have an app that is targeted at kids aged 3-5 (I don't work directly on it). It is currently in the top 10 free education apps and regularly holds a spot in the top 5 grossing education apps in the UK (we currently only have UK audio). It has an average rating of 4.5 stars, with over 100 genuine 5 star reviews from satisfied parents. The app is split into 10 topics, with the first free. The rest can be unlocked for $13.99. It uses in-app purchasing as providing the app for free with the first section available to all is the best way we can show off our product. It isn't targeted at the kid, it is aimed at the parent of the child. In no way do we try and trick anyone into a purchase. This approach has been overwhelmingly successful. I honestly think the app would've got nowhere if we'd stuck it up there as a paid app for $13.99. We could have gone for separate apps, but that's much harder to maintain and market (trust me - the product I work on has over 100 versions on the app store, we're migrating to 1 with iAP).

mwidarto 15y ago

I develop an educational app geared for kids and just like some of the people here. I dislike ads, in app purchase, external link etc so I made sure that my app doesn't have any of those and price it at $0.99. I keep updating it based on user feedback to make the app better. It's good to read that there are a lot of parent here that say they won't purchase any app with ads and/or inapp purchases for their kids but I think majority of the people don't care. Most of the top 15 apps in my app category/subject are free with ads and/or in app purchases. They can afford to make it free because they make money from ads/in-app purchases and because they're free they get a lot more download that keeps their ranking higher burying app like mine. It's hard to compete in that kind of condition but I for now, I can't see my self using ads/in-app purchases in any of my app. I will try to compete by bringing better qualities apps.

JeremiahNunn 15y ago
There are ways to do in-app purchases for kid apps that aren't unethical. In fact, allowing people to try your app before buying it is a very ethical thing to do. Don't limit yourself unnecessarily, and don't assume kid apps with iAP must be from shady developers.
- jes5199 15y ago
  I know you feel like everyone is being unreasonable about this, but instead of trying to change their minds, consider it market research: parents on hacker news overwhelmingly distrust iAP, and maybe that means some other form of try-before-you-buy would be more appropriate for kids' apps.
  - mwidarto 15y ago
    I believe windows phone market place and android allow you to do some sort of trial but I don't think you can do that in apple app store. I'm not 100% sure about this so please correct me if I am wrong.
- mwidarto 15y ago
  You are correct. There are a lot of kid apps with iAP that offer great value such as additional levels etc. I purchased some my self. It's the smurfberry kind of iAP that I don't like.

Kilimanjaro 15y ago

I always asked myself why there isn't a KIDS category in the AppStore.

thesis 15y ago

The in app purchasing on Androids needs to be stopped or at the very least prompt a password entry. I downloaded Bug Village (Glu Mobile) on my Android for my 4 year old son, and about 2 hours later I noticed around $320 on 3 purchases (I think 2 149.99 and 1 19.99 or something around that). I contacted Glu immediately asking for it to be voided/refunded. They told me to contact my bank and charge them back. I hope they enjoyed the chargeback fees. Now nothing gets downloaded with in app purchasing in it.

mathattack 15y ago

Great post! The comments about persuasive ads hits home. Another frustration is sales messages on the startup screen. Once a game requires too much parental interaction to back out purchase requests I delete it.

jljacques 15y ago

To all those who are claiming that the use of iPads will be detrimental to the health of their children. Please read this article: http://techland.time.com/2012/02/22/new-study-finds-ipads-in-the-classroom-boost-test-scores/ http://techland.time.com/2012/02/22/new-study-finds-ipads-in...