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Adults
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Children
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Application
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Appropriate
Usage
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Clothes are for wearing. Food is for eating. Toys are for playing
with.
Example: you wear socks, eat spaghetti and play with sand.
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Clothes, food and toys are for eating, wearing and abusing.
Example: you can eat spaghetti, eat a sandbox, and eat your dirty
socks. Or you can wear the dirty socks, wear the sandbox and wear
the spaghetti. Or you can abuse all three. (Adults call this abuse
"playing.")
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Your objects and environments must be both flexible and resilient,
able to perform all feats they appear able to perform and more.
Code must be ready for entirely unpredictable users that could do
anything, anytime-including the outrageous and abusive. You must
reward it, too.
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Procedures
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Follow the most efficient and logical order of activities.
Example: Go to the toilet. Now pull down your pants.
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Do what you can now and then worry about later.
Example: First pull down your pants, then walk across the house
to the toilet.
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Avoid linear procedures. If you have to, then use no more than two
steps.
Allow steps in any order, even if you find it counter-intuitive.
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Context
versus Laws of Nature
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Things have consistent behaviors and properties, regardless of their
context.
Example: Four ounces of water is four ounces of water, no matter
where you put it.
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Context is everything.
Example: Four ounces of water in a fat glass becomes more when you
pour it into a tall, thin glass.
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Change visual context when the rules change. Be cautious about changing
it when the rules stay the same.
Don't expect the child to assume things will work the same way everywhere,
until it is demonstrated many times.
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Process
versus Product
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Work towards a goal that you value.
Example: You work for hours making something look beautiful, so
you value and treasure it.
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It's the journey that counts (until age 5+)
Example: You paint a masterpiece and trash it. Pile up blocks and
knock them down. If you are disturbed by someone destroying your
work it's not because of its value, but because you made it and
they smashed it.
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Make the production process fun.
Help the child learn the value of the end product by providing easy
ways to preserve and retrieve what they've done. Don't just dump
it into the cyberdump.
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Abstract
versus Concrete
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Things can mean something other than what they are.
Example: Adults can usually read and interpret maps and charts.
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Things are what they are which is what they are.
Example: Maps and charts are weird pictures.
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Don't expect kids to read maps or understand charts. Use only very
concrete metaphors. User-test all icons, and so on.
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Enjoyment
Response
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Rarely afraid of overload.
Example: Adults who find a game really stimulating and stay with
it.
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Unpredictable response to highly stimulating experiences.
Example: Finds a game real stimulating, so the immediately quit
to come back later.
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Book lots of time and patience for user-testing.
Don't overwhelm the child. Allow them to "take the foot off of the
accelerator."
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Objective
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Wants to be a child again.
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Wants to be an adult.
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Make them feel big.
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Features
