Tablets and Kids: Creative Opportunities with Apps Empowering Young Children

Young children use tablets in ways they do not use mobile phones and computers. We find evidence in developmental theories that touch interfaces and larger screens afford better usability, while tablets' social nature keeps them accessible to children. Because of that, they have become powerful consumers of digital content.

An increasing number of apps is made for them, but the digital world has far to go in its child-centric offering. App stores have yet to explicitly support searching for children's apps, and some apps are well-intentioned but misguided in their experience designs.

How to proceed? Apps like PizzaBot, a game designed by 12-year-old Harry Moran that briefly ousted Angry Birds from the bestseller spot in the Mac App Store, show that we underestimate kids to our peril. This talk discusses different ways to involve children in the design process, not only as informative users, but also as designers and decision-makers.