Tag Archives: playtesting

Creative tools for children should be designed to ensure that learning is playful and engaging. At Scratch, we believe that it is important to use a co-design process, ensuring that the needs and perspectives of our users—especially children—are taken into account at every stage. By involving young people in the design of ScratchJr and Scratch, we can create a platform that truly meets their needs and helps them to develop the skills they need to thrive in the digital age.…

Educational media for children should be designed to ensure learning is meaningful and playful. Children should actively engage with content, connect material to what matters to them, and have a joyful and social experience.1  However, research shows that many apps are not designed in ways that support these and other research-based principles.2 One way to ensure that new technologies meet children’s needs is to involve them in the design process. Allison Druin, a leader in the Cooperative Inquiry field and…

On September 8, 2022, The Children’s Media Association Bay Area Chapter hosted a virtual event featuring the Playtest with Kids toolkit. The free interactive resource from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center features methods and case studies to help teams get actionable insights when playtesting their products with children. Moderated by Lori Takeuchi (Vice President of the Children’s Media Association of the Bay Area), the panel featured Courtney Wong Chin (Noggin), Robert Tom Kalinowski (Age of Learning), Sharon Rylander (Square Panda),…

In May, Maayan Eldar and Ashley Mannetta discussed Me: A Kid’s Diary by Tinybop at the International Communication Association Conference in Prague. The app encourages empathy and self-reflection by inviting children to respond to a series of questions about themselves and their lives with drawings, photos, texts, or recordings. We invited them to tell us more how user-testing influences the design of an app, and what the data they have begun to analyze reveals.   Last year, Tinybop launched an app…

Children are constantly experimenting. It’s ingrained in everything they do, and it’s how they learn. The process is full of humorous misunderstandings, setbacks, and successes that all lead toward mastery. And while it’s impossible to fully anticipate how children will react to something new, they can provide plenty of clues along the way. Which is exactly why playtesting our products is so important.