The other morning I came downstairs to find my 2-year-old already up, watching his favourite programme on the Internet. Nothing remarkable in that per se, except that he was alone. And I had shut the computer down the night before.
This isn’t about how smart my child is (although he can complete a Cat-in-a-Hat jigsaw in under 5 minutes reverse-side up and calculate the exact opposite of everything we ask him to do instantaneously, before implementing it without flaw).
No, the point is that in iPlayer the BBC have designed a web site so easy to use that a 2-year-old can master it.
After turning the computer on he clicks the browser icon and iPlayer opens as the homepage. From there, he clicks on an image that he recognises – perhaps Charlie, Lola or Mister Tumble – or on one that looks like it’s for kids.
Admittedly, the homepage is set to the Children’s page. But I’ve seen him get there from the front page too, by clicking on ‘Last Played’ or one of the many pictures in ‘Highlights’ or ‘Most Popular’.
Once one kids’ programme is open, he skips through a chain of large thumbnails displayed below in ‘More’ and ‘Recommendations’ until it brings up something appealing. Then he clicks the play and full screen icons, and kicks back with a little bowl of whatever he found at toddler height in the cupboard (dry noodles, honey, an unripe plum, that sort of thing).
How easy is that?
Elements of toddler-friendly design
iPlayer is doing something right that children as young as two are able to operate it. This is not news. But that someone so young should be comfortable navigating a web site made me wonder what design elements enabled his success. Here are some of my suspicions:
1) Navigation is image-based
My son can’t read a word. Not a single word. He gets the content he wants by clicking on the pictures. An adult might take shortcuts by reading the text – find the right episode straight away or employ the search box – but a preliterate child can get to the same place in time purely by clicking on pictures.
2) Images have good affordance
It is not just that the menus are images, but that the pictures are instantly recognisable (a character he has seen before) or representative (something that looks like it is for children). This provides the simple experience of seeing what you want and clicking on it to get it, otherwise known as show don’t tell.
3) Many points of entry into content and many routes between
Searching iPlayer my son rarely gets stuck. There are always more images to click on in some type of menu, scrolling gallery, or after-play recommendation. He can enter the content many ways and because they are all connected together can hop between programmes easily.
4) Identifiable and simple buttons for universal actions
iPlayer has buttons big and conventional enough for a 2-year-old to click on; for selecting, sideways scrolling, playing, pausing, and enlarging to full screen.
5) Key content above the fold, and all in one window
He doesn’t scroll down yet which shows that all this navigation is accomplished in the top part of the page.
6) One-screen experience
It helps that iPlayer works without popups or multiple windows. Otherwise he can accidentally click on the wrong window and get confused, poor chap.
Just because a web site is well designed for a non-reading 2-year-old doesn’t mean that it is well designed for anyone else. But this example proves that even with complex navigation and copious content a site can be simple to get around.
And the hardest part of the process, apart from tackling the plum? – Trying to do all of that clicking on only one side of a clunky, domed, single sprung piece of white plastic. My two-year-old might be a whizz on iPlayer, but he’s no fan of Mighty Mouse.
Awesome! That’s actually really relevant as we start to think about making audio and video Scriptures accessible to non-literate people online as web-enabled phones become the norm throughout Africa and Asia in the next few years…