iPad user interface observations for babies and toddlers

Having observed our 2/3-year old taking over the iPad as her computer, I’m becoming interested in UI for kids and toddlers. LukeW has some good points in this blogpost, but apart from that a quick search didn’t bring up much iPad specific UI thoughts for kids (except for this other one here).

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One thing I noticed is that Amelia tends to tap things very fast, sometimes too fast for the tap to register. She also quickly learnt (from watching me) to swipe the unlock thing when starting. She likes simple games, animals making sounds, eating the apple, … She also likes watching pictures and videos of herself, and she can very quickly navigate to the photo app to a specific photo or video. She can also easily navigate the main app "homescreen”, swiping left and right to find apps.

Would love to hear more thoughts on babies/toddlers using iPads.

1 2 3–the “Show all” pattern

I love the “Show all” filter in Ikea’s search results. Instead of having to page through results, it shows you all results on one page. Scrolling is faster than clicking through multiple pages.

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I figure this works as long as the complete list fits on a page (and pages can be longer than generally assumed), which is what Ikea does: when there are more results, the “Show all” button isn’t shown:

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Perfect implementation.