A parental perspective on apps for young children

Touchscreen applications (apps) for young children have seen increasingly high rates of growth with more than a hundred thousand now available apps. As with other media, parents play a key role in young children’s app selection and use. However, to date, we know very little about how parents select apps for their children. Guided by uses and gratification theory, a survey was conducted with 600 Dutch parents who had at least one child between three and seven years old. Across two studies, we identified parents’ most important needs that drive their selection of children’s apps as well as the extent to which these needs differ by parenting style. Results indicate five overarching parental needs when it comes to children’s apps, and confirm that these needs vary by parenting style. Findings offer important insight into how parents select apps for their children

Tap in, swipe through, pinch out:Understanding the role of context, content and child in apps for children

The digital revolution has brought forth smartphones and touch screen tablets, which has fundamentally changed our experience with media. In particular among the youngest of our society, the popularity of these devices and accompanying software (i.e., apps) has risen explosively. Although apps for children are received with both optimistic and pessimistic expectations, research is shifting towards a more positive perspective with researchers asking about the possibilities that apps can offer. The lack of empirical attention to the preschool audience and an inferior understanding of apps themselves served as a core motivator of the work presented in this dissertation. Guided by the three C’s (content, context, and child), which are argued to be key aspects to consider when understanding children’s relationship with technology, this dissertation aimed to: (1) provide insight into how parents select apps for their children and how different styles of parenting influence their considerations [context], (2) investigate how the child’s characteristics influence parents’ selection of apps [child], and (3) evaluate how design features in apps influence children’s experiences with apps [content]. This dissertation reveals that parents, children, and design all shape the understanding of children’s relationship with apps – both independently and conjointly. Thus, when studying children’s apps, it is not only vital to consider the content of the app but it is equally imperative to investigate differences in the child user and the context of the use. There is no such thing as a one size fits all when it comes to apps for children

Haptics and hotspots: creating usable and educational apps for children in the Netherlands

This study investigated how app design features in educational apps affect app usability (i.e. effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction during use) and subsequent learning for Dutch children aged 4–5 years old. Guided by the Capacity Model 2.0 and Cognitive Load Theory, a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment was conducted with 128 children (Mage  = 4.73, SD = .40) to investigate how tactile (i.e. haptic movement: dragging versus tapping) and visual (i.e. hotspots: salient (moving) versus non-salient (non-moving) features in an educational app (M = 4.97 minutes game play) influence app usability and children’s learning–namely, receptive vocabulary acquisition. Results lent partial support to study hypotheses. Although children learned nearly five new Dutch words after playing the seeking game only once, the manipulated features did not explain this acquisition. In line with expectations, features did influence usability with salient hotspots proving to be a key predictor of usability. Implications are discussed