[Pensacola]

<Kids also love tactility, and the more your 2D app can feel like a real physical object the better.>

All of a sudden, this delightful article about a dad creating a toy for his kids now reads like a big-tobacco eyes-only internal memo: How to hook a kid on a screen when they should be interacting with real world physical objects.

[myaccountonhn]

It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors. Adjacent stuff like music are ostensibly getting simpler.

It makes me think that if they designed adult books today, they would be like children's books. One sentence in a big font and one image per page.

Doesn't have to be bad, but I worry we lose discipline and our cognitive abilities decline when everything is spoon fed.

[sudoshred]

I see your point but the implied perspective of this take is that being an adult means consistently interacting with systems that are designed explicitly to be difficult to use. I, as an adult, appreciate interfaces designed to be simple and easy to use, not because I need it, but because it is efficient and respectful of my time. Accepting the status quo that systems are expected to be explicitly difficult to use (in a way that does not reflect domain complexity) is in my opinion learned helplessness and complicity. I won’t comment on the cultural observation about music, except to say that might be a practical constraint of content designed for mass appeal. If you want high brow and sophisticated taste you have to accept that your audience shrinks, as a matter of practicality.

[myaccountonhn]

Yeah, I don't really see the point in difficulty for difficulty's sake. But sometimes there is inherit difficulty: democracy requires us to be informed, and distilling complex topics to a 30 second short might not give the nuance a topic enough; exercise requires us to move, there is no magic pay-to-win.

Studies indicate that tech literacy is dropping, what does that entail for those moments where the more user respecting (as in more secure, preserves privacy, gives autonomy) software is inherently more complex than "user-friendly" alternatives?

[sudoshred]

I don’t have a comprehensive answer to your question. I agree that “user-friendly” is often a euphemism for “non-technical” or “low code”. I don’t think that supposition is fair, but it is not escapable as an individual. That being said to the extent that the functionality available is useful regardless of the user’s expertise, I think that is valuable. Granted, you will never avoid inherent complexity, for example the task of being an informed citizen does not become easier with better tools, but the inefficiency can be reduced. The user still must participate, however the unnecessary impediments can be removed. I think the value here is not in reducing complexity, but in removing un-needed complexity so that essential complexity can be studied more efficiently. I appreciate your point that “studies have shown…” and that may be correct, however anecdotally studies rarely are relevant to the specific circumstances discussed, and when I hear that phrase I immediately discount the following advice as generic and ill-considered. Authority does not imbue value, and a study is not inherently valid in any other context. I think the most pressing challenge is that the sources with the resources required to publish their perspectives are, rarely, if ever, acting in the interest of their audience… they have an agenda. Realistically speaking, even if complex systems were made easier to use, the vast majority of people who could benefit from adopting them would choose not to do so simply because of their own lack of awareness of the “why” or justification to do so. Usability is necessary but not sufficient. Improving efficiency is only possible when the need for that improvement is firmly appreciated, which in IT is rare.

[dolebirchwood]

> It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children. UIs have immense spacing and big fonts, icons always accompany text, company branding tends to have strong bold contrasty colors.

While those might all be things 7-year-old children appreciate, they are also things my 70-year-old parents appreciate.

[myaccountonhn]

Yeah I intentionally said it a bit provocatively, but I don't necessarily think it is bad. I personally increase the font sizes on my phone as well.

Though while some designs are necessary for accessiblity, some design decisions seem to be cultural preferences: Japanese UIs tend to be information dense, and they tend to prefer it whereas some westerners would probably scream if they had to interact with it.

[jjani]

There should be an age of "supermajority" where a bunch of rights revert to being similar to the age of minority.

And yes, I too have parents of that age, and yes, they're still mentally sharp.

[delichon]

Which of my rights do you want to take away without caring if I'm impaired or not?

[jjani]

The rights of minors are taken away without caring if they're impaired or not. At completely different ages across different territories, showing how it's comparably arbitrary if so.

Voting should be weighted compared to average remaining life expectancy, for one.

[autoexec]

All minors are impaired to some degree since their brains are still developing.

https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Fam...

[watwut]

Big fonts are not for kids. They are for adults with worsening eyesight, which is considerable amount of population over 40. And I assure you there was parade of super simple popular music 20 years ago, 100 years ago or whenever.

[bobthepanda]

also, accessibility legislation has come a very long way, and in the US no one wants to deal with an ADA lawsuit.

[fluidcruft]

I think it's more that people are designing things with the intention of never creating documentation. The analogy with books doesn't really work for me because of that. Books aren't user interfaces that are learned.

The main UI parts of books to learn are page numbers, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. They're not necessarily intuitive but they are pretty universal and standardized.

The reality is that people will use the things they use the fastest. And not having to learn how to use things means people will use them more.

[JadeNB]

> Books aren't user interfaces that are learned.

They definitely are! We just learn them so young that we forget that we had to.

[jstummbillig]

I would put another spin on it: We place more value on not being hostile to readers and users in general. For example, I noticed that the good papers are less horribly written now then they were in the past. In academia, being difficult to read and understand used to be a sign of sophistication (but more realistically serves as a way to cover up bad thinking and overall slow down progress). Today, people are actually willing to point it out and treat it with the little patience this nonsense deserves.

That is not to say that complexity does not have merits, but I say let the pendulum swing. I think we could do with a lot less in most areas still.

[somethingsome]

I find papers nowadays contain way less content than before, yes the writing is easier to read, but the page count didn't increase, that means that there is less information per page now.

A scientific paper is written for a specific audience, experts in that field, and when you read many papers, it's very annoying 'easy writing' because you need to rapidly understand the meat of the paper, not being introduced again and again to your subject. Now it's more difficult to find the details that you need, if they're even written.

It makes maybe the job of a PhD easier when he start studying in the field, but I think we lost something there..

Not all fields are equal, deep learning papers are very easy to read, but also very annoying to read, too many repetitions of something that is explained in another paper, I don't need to read for the 100th time what NeRF is, only what is different in this paper compared to the previous ones. While many mathematical papers are way more dense and target the intended audience.

Increasing the page count is not really a solution either, it is a burden for the writer to continue writing easy things, and for the reader to never find the interesting parts.

On the other hand, when I read a paper that is not in my field, I appreciate the easy to read paper.

I think papers should return to dense readings by experts, but authors should also maintain blogs where the paper is simplified, and those blogs should be included in the evaluation for a PhD. In this way, if you are an expert, you get the interesting parts, and at the same time, if it is not your field, you can be introduced with many good blogs to the field.

[astrobe_]

> It does feel like modern designs are treating everyone like children

I read TFA because I thought some of it because some of it could be applicable to attention-deficient adults, victims of the pandemic that started before the pandemic.

Wasn't disappointed. The first observation of FTA is that children don't read, and so are adults; they don't read the docs (and forget about putting helpful info in tooltips and dialogs, they don't read them either), they read every other line in emails, etc. Unless they asked for those texts, and that may be one of the reasons why conversational AI is successful.

> Doesn't have to be bad, but I worry we lose discipline and our cognitive abilities decline when everything is spoon fed.

I think TFA is about apps with unforgiving users, so the author has to perfect the UI; he is a bona fide UI designer. I think the vast majority of applications out there don't have one. As a result the UX is generally passable at best, which adds artificial cognitive overload. You can't really blame users for taking shortcuts such as not reading. I do that, you do that, we all do that.

[pbowyer]

No, it reads like someone who appreciates why skeuomorphism was good in specific situations, and that this is one of them.

[sandspar]

This is a good negative interpretation, thanks for bringing it up. For balance, a neutral interpretation is that an app may be better or worse than physical objects. A positive interpretation is that painting apps lets kids express themselves safely and for free.

[shaneos]

Author here. I find this to be a pretty cynical take. I tried to express that if I build something and it makes my kids smile then it stays in the app. You appear to have a different take on it. Should we not try to make children enjoy using the tools they use? What's the alternative? Make you app actively hostile and difficult to they'll go touch grass? I'm honestly not clear on the point you're making here.

[Timwi]

It would help if you hadn't repeatedly used exploitative marketing/business language like “user retention” and “monetization”. Your desire to delight children and make them smile is commendable if that is the end-goal, but the text reads like the end-goal is to hook children and make money off of them.

[shaneos]

The app's audience is children. The blog post's audience are professional designers and engineers. I am speaking their language. People build apps for a variety of reasons - I started off with this app just making it for my kids, until I decided to make an effort to find more users - and one of those reasons is to make a living off the time spent working on it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hoping to be compensated for your time and effort, and that is why we must discuss user retention and monetization. These are not dirty or exploitative terms in and of themselves, they are simply tools used to measure an app's usage and current level of progress towards your goals so that you can react accordingly.

What is exploitative is the way almost all supposedly child friendly apps try to trick or corrupt children with ads and gamified purchases. My post comes out very explicitly against this, which I presume you read.

[Timwi]

I did, and I do genuinely find your project (and approach) commendable! I'm sorry I didn't say that because of the focus of my comment.

I was merely responding to the kind of language you used to describe it. You call it the language of designers and engineers, but I'm sorry, that's not my language! To me, that is the language of commercial entrepreneurs and capitalists and they give me a gag reflex.

I would love for you (and everyone else) to be able to live in a world where you can pursue this kind of passion project without having to worry about “making a living”. The commercial and capitalist mindset is what's standing in your way.

[Pensacola]

This actually captured my intended point, which was expressed poorly and hastily. It's not my intention to twist or neglect the good intentions of the OP in designing an app for his kids, merely pointing out that some of the language read more sinister.

[astrobe_]

You both fall for the false dichotomy trap. If anything, this remark should be taken as criticism towards parents who find it much more convenient to use an app and a tablet, rather than buying physical stuff, have to put it away, and to keep a close eye on their kids so they don't ruin the wallpaper or run with pointy pens in their hands etc. Certainly the thing you need on rainy days or when you have other things to do. Uti, non abuti (use but don't abuse)

[somethingsome]

Struggle is very good for learning, I remember as a child enjoying very difficult interfaces because I was proud of being able to navigate the software when I finally get there, becoming very efficient with it, and I learned way more about the domain. (I'm thinking for example Cubase, reason, Photoshop at the time, most linux softwares, vim,...)

While easy to use softwares are more 'enjoyable' and the dopamine reward is high for small actions, it also prevent to develop some ability and resilience in navigating harder things. When the software complexity increases, users get annoyed and don't use it correctly because they were never exposed to much complexity before. (thinking about medical softwares that require many many actions to encode a patient, finance softwares, etc..)

Now, not all softwares are made to improve one efficiency. In your case, the app allows a children to express its creativity in other ways, which is very valuable also. So I think it is good that the interface and the interaction are easy, the focus should be on the creativity and not on the manipulation.

[darkwater]

Learning can and should be also through practice and raising the bar, I agree, but don't mix learning as a general concept applied to a population with your own survivorship bias.

[somethingsome]

I think both kind of applications should exist in parallel. I generally dislike current trend in professional softwares that try to be easy to use, at the cost of less power or more clicks to do a simple action.

Professional apps should stay professional and more time should be spent in training power users.

I'm trying not to mix with my own survivorship bias,but I tend to believe that current trends of design remove the existance of advanced users at a young age. The applications are so polished and limiting that you don't spend time trying to do complex things with them.

I find bugs in old apps were a feature for learning. If it doesn't work, you try to understand why. Curiosity is intrinsic to young children, until we remove it by giving them something that never bug or limits their possibilities.

[thfuran]

Overcomplicating interfaces is bad for usability even if someone might feel accomplished for sorting through the mess.

[miek]

I loved your writeup. Thank you for taking the time to share what you've learned.

It's odd to see such nonsensical detractors here on HN.

[mysterydip]

I'm working on a game for my kids to play, so I for one am appreciative and taking notes for my own implementation. I've definitely observed at least some of the things mentioned, so hopefully combining those with your others will save me some time and grief. Thanks!

[shaneos]

So happy to hear it’s helpful! I’d love to check out the game when it’s done

[dkga]

I don’t agree, the vibe I got from that was about focusing design on things kids like to do and see. I think that was also clear from the no ads discussion.

[miek]

How is this the top comment? The author's aim is making their app a joy to use because it is for their own children. You interpreted their comment about making things feel like real objects as them trying to hook users like big tobacco? Utter nonsense.

[parasti]

As a parent of a toddler, could not disagree more.

This article can be read two different ways.

A parent making an app for their own children is wholesome and making a list of UX finds is helpful to other parents in that position.

At the same time app stores are filled with games that hook kids on with bright visuals, sound effects, and basic button mashing.

That second use case is vastly more common.

[miek]

I can't help but wonder if I'm being trolled. This app does not hook kids with garbage, visuals, sound effects, or basic button mashing. The author is also against ads, social sharing (due to child safety), and children being able to spend money in the app.

You say "that second use case is vastly more common", however the author is very clearly aimed at the first use case. Yet you are arguing that they fall into the second.

[parasti]

I am not arguing that.

You called a viewpoint that I share "utter nonsense". So I presented a counterpoint. A counterpoint to your opinion is neither a troll nor an attack on the original author's intent and/or character.

All I'm saying is we can both read the same article and one of us goes to build an app for their kid while the other goes and builds an app that gets other people's kids addicted to it while shoving ads. This has nothing to do with the author of the article.