Kids' Corner: Website Usability for Children (Alertbox April 2002) Differences between Children and Adult Users
Our usability findings for kids often differed from those we typically find when testing adult users. Some of the more striking differences were:
Animation and sound effects were positive design elements for children; they often created a good first impression that encouraged users to stay with a site.
Children were willing to "mine-sweep," scrubbing the screen with the mouse either to find clickable areas or simply to enjoy the sound effects that different screen elements played.
Geographic navigation metaphors worked: Kids liked the pictures of rooms, villages, 3D maps, or other simulated environments that served as an overview and entry point to various site or subsite features.
Children rarely scrolled pages and mainly interacted with information that was visible above the fold. (We also observed this behavior among adult Web users in 1994, but our more recent studies show that adults now tend to scroll Web pages.)
Half of our young users were willing to read instructions; indeed, they often preferred to read a paragraph or so of instructions before starting a new game. In contrast, most adult users hate instructions and try to use websites without having to read about what they are supposed to do.