Advice on Creating Apps for Kids for MA App development students

Tue 1 Dec 2020

1. Use Fun Visual & Sound Design for Children after Earning Your MA in Creative App Development
2. Strive For Simple User Experience When Designing Apps for Children

An app, or application, is a programme that can be used across a broad range of platforms, including mobile devices, computers, or within web browsers. Apps can be devoted to many different tasks—from finding weather information to playing games, and beyond—and are one of the main ways a person can customise their experience with a device. In essence, apps let you use your computer, mobile, or tablet for almost anything you want to use it for.

Though many apps are meant for adults, there is a sizeable market for applications designed for children, and the differences in mental and motor capabilities and preferences between children and adults make for unique challenges for developers working on such apps.

Here are two important tips to help students earning their Master’s Degree in Creative App Development create great apps for children.

1. Use Fun Visual & Sound Design for Children after Earning Your MA in Creative App Development

Children enjoy bright colours, smiling cartoon characters, and happy or funny sounds. When designing an app for children, including some or all of these elements will help you to create a design that will get kids engaged with your app and use it regularly.

To evaluate your success in integrating these design elements when creating a product for children, consider using the online critique and group discussion portions of your programme to gain outside perspectives from your peers and tutors on what is and is not working with your app's design. The community of people in Falmouth’s online MA in Creative App Development programme comes from a variety of backgrounds, and includes artists, audio specialists, and designers, so by seeking the opinions of others in this group, you are sure to receive great feedback about how well your use of colours, shapes, characters, and sound effects will work to attract an audience of children.

For additional feedback on their apps, students should consider attending Falmouth Flexible's highly recommended workshops, held biannually at various locations across the globe including the UK, Asia, and the Middle East.

2. Strive For Simple User Experience When Designing Apps for Children

Apps with good, simple user experience (UX) work in a way that feels natural to the user, and contain very few obstacles for use. Good UX is especially important when developing apps for young children, as these users will likely become frustrated with, or disinterested in a confusing app more quickly than adults.

While enrolled on Falmouth’s MA in creative app development programme, you will study under academics who are experts in design and interactive practices, and who will teach you how to create applications that not only look good, but are also intuitive.

If you are interested in developing an application to be used by children, you can leverage your access to this expertise, using it as a tool to learn how to implement a simple, foolproof user experience—the kind that will work well for the specific needs of young children. Examples of good UX choices for children include minimal menu options, and no easy access to advanced settings, lest a child accidentally break app functionality.

online MA in creative app development 

Experienced Falmouth faculty members can teach you how to create apps with a great user experience

By taking advantage of your access to a community of talented peers and the expertise of your instructors, you will be able to learn important skills needed to design attractive, easy-to-use apps for children while you are studying with Falmouth.

 

Thinking about earning your online MA degree in creative app development?

Contact Falmouth University to learn about our Flexible Learning MA programs.

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