Designing a Website for Kids

When I first designed a website for a toy and gaming company, I thought the task would be easier than the usual. Knowing that the client’s target market was young kids, I thought it would be fine to take this campaign lightly and spend more time on my other ‘harder’ web design tasks.

I was wrong. Designing for kids was a different experience, but not in the way I thought it would be. It was more challenging and exciting and required me to pull out my old design textbooks to get a better feel of my assignment.

User experience

Creating a digital experience for someone who lacks the cognitive capacity to understand the elements of web design is no joke; designing with that in mind can be even more exasperating.

Creating a digital experience for kids is different from creating one for adults. The designer should always keep in mind that his target audience is made up of children who, in some cases, may still be learning to read and unaccustomed to ‘typing’ and understanding web elements. The process of making them understand how the website works can be painstaking: Everything that occurs on the website should be explained step by step, because unless a child understands how one process leads to another, he may lose interest in the website.

Let me explain more clearly: A child will not, for instance, understand why he needs to "sign up" before entering a page or playing an online game. You need to allocate a separate page to explain why signing up is required. Once the child has signed up, he will need to see auditory and graphical elements to help him understand the next process. If he’s to play a game, he should be provided with concrete and substantial examples--via simulation or a tutorial--of what it would be like to play the game. The child needs to experience something perceptible and tangible for him to be able to navigate your website with ease and enjoyment.

Exaggerate What You Create

Kids, like adults, will view or browse a website to experience it. However, when children view websites, they do not know what the specific web elements (aesthetics, colors, contrast, layout) are, but are instinctively drawn to what appeals to them. (Adults, on the other hand, fully understand the capacity of web elements to enhance their browsing experience.)

For this reason, designers need to exaggerate web elements in sites designed for kids to capture the child’s attention. Images should be larger and use extra bright colors; font styles should be appealing and readable. Color contrast should be highly prioritized; and all web directions (sign-up, alerts, commands) should be clearly presented and audible.



Joseph writes about SEO, Blogging, and Web Development. He works for Endless Rise who provides private label SEO reseller services to to many companies with their large in house staff. You can become an SEO reseller today and have an SEO company without doing all the work yourself.