Children are selective about the technology they use. They choose to use specific websites when the experience seems worthwhile and when it beats other options. Children have specific interests and online behavior and require design styles that match their needs.

This 259-page report offers 130 design guidelines based on our usability research. Discussions and 244 screenshot illustrations supplement our findings.

Benefits

• Get in the heads of kids: Understand what motivates them to stay on websites
• Checklist of 130 design recommendations that will make your website more suited for children and easier for them to use
• Detailed methodology section that shows how you can conduct your own usability studies with children, including where to test, when to involve parents, and whether or not to test in pairs

Topics covered

• The importance of usability for kids
• Myths about children on the web
• Kids' technical understanding
• How children use computers
• Why kids use the internet
• Parent involvement
• Comparing usability for kids and adults
• International differences
• Gender differences
• Difference findings between our first and second study
• Usability design guidelines
  • Getting to your website
  • General interaction
  • Interaction: Pointing devices and keyboard
  • Forms, passwords, and memberships
  • Navigation
  • Search
  • Homepages
  • Legibility and text design for beginning readers
  • Readability and comprehension
  • Instructions
  • Images
  • Waiting time
  • Animation and video
  • Audio
  • Advertisements
  • System errors and help
  • Targeted content
  • Characters
• Methodology: Co-discovery sessions vs. single participants
• Online concerns for parents and children

Download report excerpt (2MB PDF)

What’s new in the 2nd and 3rd Edition?

The second edition contains additional recommendations, increasing from 70 to 130 guidelines. We also studied a broader age range, kids 6-11 years old to 3-12 years old.

The third edition contains new and updated screenshot examples.

Research method

The information in this report is based on two rounds of studies, conducted nine years apart, with children between 3-12 years old. We used usability testing as the method of research:

• One-on-one usability testing
• Co-discovery usability testing, for which kids evaluate websites in pairs

In total, 90 children tested the usability of 53 websites targeted at their age group, as well as the kids area on mainstream websites. The studies took place in the United States and Israel in  participants' homes, at schools, and in usability labs.