https://www.nngroup.com/articles/kids-cognition/
Children’s cognitive skills are still developing, so they process information and interact with digital products very differently from adults. Their reasoning, memory and understanding evolve with age and this affects how they use interfaces and solve tasks
Piaget’s Development Theory explains how children’s thinking changes as they grow up. It was proposed by swiss psychologist Jean Piaget who believes that children don’t just know less than adults but they also think in fundamentally different ways and their ability to understand the world develops in 4 clear stages.
This is when children learn about the world entirely through their senses and physical actions such as touching, grasping or looking. They start to learn about object permanence which is that things exist even when they can’t see them
This is when children begin to start using language and symbols but think very literally and therefore struggle with logic and seeing other perspectives. They also lack the ability to understand conservation, meaning for example they think a tall, thin glass holds more water than a short, wide one and will take instructions at face value. Because of this, they rely heavily on visuals and imagination so the best design to use is clear visuals, simple language, characters and concrete examples.
This is the stage when their thinking becomes more logical and can start to understand concepts like conservation, realising that quantity doesn’t change even if the appearance of an object does.This also helps them to follow rules and sequences, understand cause and effects better and have the ability to sort things into groups and mentally reverse actions.
However while they begin to recognise and think about others’ thoughts and feelings more realistically, they still struggle with abstract or hypothetical ideas. To help aid this stage, we can design using step-by-step tasks, clear goals, progress indicators and simple explanations work well.
At this stage, adolescents develop the ability to think abstractly and solve hypothetical problems like adults. They have the ability to understand hypothetical situations and tackle “what-if” scenarios. They also have stronger problem-solving and decision-making skills and can understand more complex concepts like ethics, science, and mathematics, thinking systematically and forming hypotheses. This means they can use interfaces that resemble adult designs, with more text and complex options.
When designing for children, it’s essential to match the experience to their cognitive development stage.