Knowing my target audience

To create a website that will work for my audience effectively, it is vital that I truly understand them. While I consider my audience to be between the ages of 6-12, in a matter of fact it should be defined into smaller categories as the knowledge and abilities of the ages 6 and 12 are completely different. Therefore the categories should be split up into the groups 6-8 and 9-12.

6-8 Age Range

It is important that the user will not always understand the language used with adults site, therefore it is vital to change the language so that they understand. An example would be instead of using the word “Submit” instead use the word “Start” or “Go”and instead of “Username” it shoould say “Nickname”.

9-12 Age Range

By this age, the users will be very accustomed with using a website, and they will be able to scroll through content very quickly but will have difficulty differentiating between adverts and content.

What I learnt

The use of big, bold, bright colors and pictures for both age ranges is vital as it help the user understand how to navigate the website. Using gestures on mobile platforms is too complex for the kids and ui should consist of tapping and scrolling only, instead of pinch and zoom features.

Icons that match the functions of buttons should be present to allow the user to understand the context of what they are seeing. A home icon should be present throughout the site as to allow for easy navigating.

Referencing nature in the site will be vital as it’s one the things they know the most about at such a young age, and find these references visually stimulating.

Design elements, like buttons, should be made to appear in a large format on the screen.

Depth should be implemented into the design, so that the user can use their imagination to believe it is real.

Kids don’t enjoy large amounts of reading, even the parts where kids learn about other cultures should contain as little text as possible.

Changing the mouse to be another animal, perhaps the food of the frog, a fly in my case, could grab the attention of the user.

Not using a grid format makes a website more exciting for children.

A section for parents is vital to allow the parents to understand tyhe concept of the site.

References:

https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/04/29/ux-for-kids/

Designing Websites For Kids: Trends And Best Practices

Advertisement

Defining my Project

I have a lot of research at this stage so I think it is relevant to do a sitemap of all the planned content for the site and how it fits together, this allows me to determine what is most important, and the hierachy of the content, seeing the content in this way will allow me to pull sections together in new theories and solutions that weren’t possible previously.

The Sitemap looks like as follows;

Duolingo: Learning Languages

Duolingo is a free online service to help people around the learn languages for free. The way the organisation makes money is through having professional documents translated by the community. This means that the user isn’t given a limited service, or distracted with adverts, and even the money making side of the site benifits it’s users by giving them practicing translating text. This site is the best site for learning languages for free, and it has been developed to be used in schools, much like my service.

Teachers require special tools to keep track of their students, I have studied the tools available to teachers on Duolingo as part of my research. Below is what I have discovered.

To begin with teachers need to get the student to join their classroom

They provide multiple wayts to get the students setup. They even include this downloadable printout for the students

On this page the teacher has the ability to track the students in their class and the lessons completed;

The teacher has the ability to create assignments for their students

and how the assignments are to be acheived, should it be by collecting points in their own chosen topic, or should it be something specified by the teacher?

If the points are selected then the point to be acheived are selected.

Due dates for the tasks, and start dates if the teacher wants to plan out a semester.and if the teacher prefers to set a specific task, 

Suggestions for classes the students can be given by their teacher;

and even classroom tasks;

Tracking the students is possible by allowing the teacher to see what assignments they’ve completed

and then the specifics of that assignment

It is worth noting that the teacher holds the privacy options of the students when setting up the accounts. (I believe the user/student has the right to change these themselves if they want at a later stage);

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT:

My project should allow teachers to;

– view all students progress

– track what they’ve learnt

– Identify interests of the students

– Identify interest in common of certain students

– specify homework via;

– Points collected (If selected gives user lots of freedom to explore)

– Specific tasks

– Lock accounts to specific tasks by teachers until they are completed

 – Use Premade lessons that;

– Are split up into subjects

– After learning tests (Automatic marking – saves on teachers work)

Kids store research

For my research into what kids like when it comes to toys I decided to visit some of the big toy chains in London. M&M Chocolate, Nickelodeon, Harrods and Hamleys were the stores I visited, below are the lessons I learnt from the trip.

The M&M Chocolate store was themed in bright colours of the M&Ms. You can see below how they have themed the store around the characters. They are very important as they also relate to differentiating the characters, this is something I should do with my character line.

You can also see how they use the characters and relate them to pop culture within their store;

There is potential to create more expensive luxury items that could be sold in certain stores, these items can be larger versions of the normal versions which are only available to purchase I certain stores. You see a great example of this here;

Accessorizing on the characters and the accessories that go with them could be a great way to capitalize on the characters. I could then even expand my characters into building scene playsets for the different countries and famous landmarks.