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How Kids Use the Web
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox usability column details how kids use the web. Even if you don't design sites for kids, some of the results are very interesting. As you might expect, kids like sound and animation more than adults. They're also much more likely to click on ads ... but mostly because they don't realize that's what they are. And although there are some differences, the testing shows kids really aren't that different than adults, preferring consistent, simple and clear interaction. (And they hate slow load times, too!)"
Even though participants in our study were very young, they often had the greatest success using websites intended for adults. Sites such as Amazon and Yahoo! are committed to utter simplicity and compliance with Web design conventions, and have become so easy to use that they support little kids very well. In contrast, many of the children's sites had complex and convoluted interaction designs that stumped our test users. As one first-grade boy said, "The Internet is a lot of times BORING because you can't find anything when you go on to it."
Maybe it's time that we give kids full access, and create dumbed down portals to adults.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
Even if they can be educated to distinguish advertising from content, there are many flashy (and annoying) advertisements that most of us ignore promising rewards like:
"If this banner is flashing, You've won $50!"
"You have new mail."
etc. A completely seperate issue to advertising vs. content is false/misleading advertising. People (hopefully) evenutally learn to distinguish this, however much of this catches adults off guard as well.
Garth/Darkstar
That's a real big sample space they've got there. I mean, they talk about how web designers sometimes observe how their own kids use the web and how that is not really representative of how the average american kid will do the same.
But they claim to have accurate results when they've tested 55 kids to represent how tens of millions of kids globally will use the web? This is balderdash, I say! They did not take enough samples. They should go test several THOUSAND children and them come back with results.
I mean, would you trust a study that calims to provide the innermost secrets of online behaviour of the average american adult when they have observed only 55 people in the whole country? I doubt it.
Sites for kids. That's about as vague as "sites for adults" (as opposed to "adult sites," of course).
There are several problems with categorizing the design of kids' sites too generically, though I do believe they did a reasonable attempt judging from the summary.
It's important to note that these were elementary school children. A first grader at 6 years old will still be learning how to sit still in his seat, while a fifth grader will begin thinking about his first date. They only studied 55 children, which is not a huge amount.
The only thing we know about those 55 kids is that 2/3 were in the US and 1/3 were in Israel (how about Finland? Brazil? Korea? Why Israel?) Kids in lower socioeconomic strata often can't even read basic words until third grade.
Were the kids told to look for information? Were they asked how "fun" the sites were? Why were they on line in the first place? Doing any design study without clearly identifying motivations basically produces useless results. For information, I recall several years ago being fairly impressed with Encarta's UI, and many of the early electronic "books" on CD-ROM (back in 1993-4, before Microsoft co-opted the term). And for entertainment, I have observed little kids really enjoying the "minesweeping" style of interface.
Can sweeping conclusions be drawn from such a study? Probably. But designers should be very wary if anyone ever asks them to make a product for any age group without a hell of a lot deeper segmentation as well.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
...with some of Neilsen's findings, specifically regarding the willingness of kids to read paragraphs of text.
In my "real life" job as Creative Director for FoxKids.com, we ran test groups on our target demo (boys 6-11). Specifically, we had them run through pages with varying amounts of text vs. imagery.
We found that kids systematically ignored any text more than two sentences long, or not specifically associated with content they were interested in.
In the case of games, since they were interested in playing they would reluctantly read a paragraph- but it was much more effective to have pictures with one word legends, like "Collect" and "Avoid."
It may sound depressing- "Kid's don't read!" - but you can turn it around-- maybe most of these kids have already learned that most of the text on the Internet is useless filler copy written by marketing droids, and they're just going straight for the interactivity.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
I am 14 and have been on the net for at least 4-5 years. Maybe I'm not in the majority, considering I read slashdot, but the vast majority of people can distinguish between ads and content regardless of age. If you are, let's say 10-11 or above, I'd guess most times you are using the internet it's for some form of content.
/. However, there is invariably a reason you're on the computer- and it's easy to figure out from trial and error that "you have one new message waiting" or "punch the monkey and win" won't get you to that content.
It doesn't matter whether this content is about sports, video games, advanced nuclear physics, or
I participate in several online discussion communities about a variety of topics. However, I don't usually note the fact I'm 14 when I post. It's sad that just the fact of this can make people take what you say less seriously, rather then considering it for what it is.