Preschoolers & their mums on the web

Preschoolers and their mums on the web

Gerda Van DammePresentation at Digital Marketing First,Brussels, 28/10/2010

Who is Dreammachine?• We are a small web agency, working on medium-sized budgets for mainly big clients, such as Henkel,

Microsoft, Nutrition & Santé, Nestlé, a.o.• People in our organization have experience in building web projects since ‘95, the very early days of

the internet in Belgium.• Our services are website development and on-line campaigns.• ...not especially targeted at children, we usually work for all age groups.

Preschoolers and their mums on the web. Gerda Van Damme 28/10/2010All rights reserved © 2010 Dreammachine and cited authors — see references.

12, rue de la Bruyère St. Martin | 1320 Tourinnes-la-Grosse | Belgium | Phone +32 (0) 10 86 12 4217, rue de Rocroi | 5660 Cul-des-Sarts | Belgium | Phone +32 (0)60 39 09 04www.dreammachine.be | [email protected]

What’s so fascinating about preschoolers online?Our current preschoolers are the fi rst generation of internet users who are born at a time when the internet is completely accepted as a mainstream element in our daily lives, with internet access available in the vast majority of households. They are raised by the generation (called generation Y) who adopted the internet with a huge enthusiasm 10 years ago, when they were teens, using already applications like IM on a daily basis. In this respect their mothers are very different than all previous generations of mothers.

This paper is based upon desk research and will treat a number of topics related to preschoolers going online, and to the mums of those preschoolers.

We will treat the following topics:• Characteristics of the preschooler• The kids corner on the internet• Use of electronic media by preschoolers• Usability issues of preschooler websites• Webvertising towards preschoolers• Legal & ethical considerations• Reaching the preschooler mums



Who are those kids? What can they do and how do they think?To understand the way preschoolers use the internet, let’s fi rst have a look at their cognitive and emotional development, which will infl uence their browsing behaviour and their browsing capabilities.

• Preschoolers are very curious, but they have a have a short attention span.• Once absorbed in an activity, they like to do the same thing over and over.• When they master something new, they have a huge sense of accomplishment

There is a big difference between kids 3-4 years old, and 5 years old.

Age 3-4:• They like to laugh and try to tell themselves simple jokes that make no sense. • They are still very egocentric.• They are concrete thinkers concentrating on one feature at a time, they don’t understand the concept of

compensation. To explain this, the easiest is to refer to the story you may know of the tall and the wide glass fi lled with water. Toddlers will always think that the tallest glass has most water, and cannot compensate the lower height with the larger width.

• They do categorizing based upon 1 attribute. E.g. for a child an apple may not be recognized as fruit, as you cannot squeeze the juice out. Also they have no ability to see hierarchies yet. This will have an impact on the way they can understand subcategories in a website.

• They have no comprehension of time. If you say that their friend will visit in a week, they will ask every day if he’s coming today.

• They display very externalized emotions (crying, laughing, fi ghting,…).



Age 5:• Empathy starts to really develop and they start learning socially acceptable behaviour.• Start using and understanding symbols. E.g. ‘I am a witch’ ( sitting on a broom, this is enough as a symbol

to make the statement acceptable for the child).• Distinction between appearance and reality starts to develop, but they love to ‘pretend’ that their

phantasies are real. They still sincerily believe that things can appear and disappear.• They are questioning adults to understand the world.• They still have no strategies for memory.• They have a limited understanding of maps, but diffi culties with understanding e.g. that the red line on a

map doesn’t mean that the street is red.• They learn from experiences (‘if I do this, this will happen’) they see causality.• In complex tasks they will only focus on the current subtask.• They start to accept a delay in the fulfi lment of their desires. E.g. wait for their turn to play with a toy.

The kids corner on the internetWhat is the internet according to kids?

• Kids have a very confused understanding of the concept of the internet. One child will say: ‘It sits in the computer. But talking to granny on the computer, is NOT using the internet, as that’s ‘not in the computer, but through the telephone in fact’. ‘It’s all explanations, pages pages pages’. ‘Youtube’. ‘Games’.

• Here’s the explanation of a very wise girl : “The internet connects all the computers in the world.”



What is the internet-offer for preschoolers really?

• Together with their parents or older brothers or sisters, they use non-targeted applications, such as Youtube, email, Facebook, search, ...

• Further it’s mainly all about games and edutainment, often offered by media (video, tv show related content, Disney,…) or brands.

Some examples of games and edutainment: sound associations, matching games, shapes, colours, sizes games, jigsaws, dot-to-dot drawing games, memory games, number or letter games, quizzes, games against speed, stories,… etc.

The browser they are using to access the internet can be a standard browser, in which parental controls can be installed. But there are also very nice kids browsers: e.g. Kido’z (community based content, paid browser), Krowser, MyBee (from KPN, only in Dutch). ISP’s also offer safety packages for parents with kids going on the internet.

Electronic media usage of preschoolersNot many fi gures are available. Most extensive metrics studies that are publically available start at ages like 7, 12, 13, 15 years old. Here are some data which were quite striking to us:

• Nielsen Online says that younger children are going online at a faster rate than any other group.• In 2005 1 out of 4 of 5-6 year US kids used a computer on an average of 50 minutes on a typical day. The

amount of time children spend on a computer has tripled over the last decade.• They are quickly quite computer savvy: At average children are able to point and click with a mouse from

the age of 3,5.



• 3 parents out of 4 are convinced that using a computer mostly helps children’s learning (versus 43% who think that about television).

• In Holland 1 out of 4 Dutch preschoolers are online at least once a week.

This generation of preschoolers going online is not the very fi rst one of course: Where 9 years ago children of 7 to 12 had no internet experience and were struggling as newbees with the computer and the internet, those now behave as wizkids, where the preschoolers are now the ones struggling with scrollbars etc. With this we get to the subject of usability for preschoolers.

Usability for preschooler websites2 GOLDEN RULES:

1. AT LEAST respect common universal usability rules. What confuses adults will certainly confuse young kids.2. Don’t base your assumptions upon how you imagine children are supposed to behave, or on your

experiences with your own child. Test your solution with a number of kids, in presence of an adult, letting the children say their thoughts out loud. Test your interface with kids. Kids reactions are UNPREDICTABLE.

Illustration of unpredictability : There is a nice story of a researcher, putting a line of a number of smarties in front of a child, and a longer one, only having the same amount of smarties, asking, ‘which line of smarties would you like to have’. The child chose the longest line, not because it was longer, but as it said ‘because it has the red one’.

Testing is the only way to make sure that your interface is understood as it was intended.

The typical problems in usability that occur now on preschoolers, are the same ones that occurred 10 years ago on the 6-8 age group.

2 important researches have been done :

• Usability Goeroe Jakob Nielsen just did a fi rst big research on usability with preschoolers, available since last month. It includes a series of very concrete tips of what to do and what not to do on childrens’ websites, based upon empirical research and analysis of childrens’ websites.

• Johanna Gelderblom has made up a very interesting set of guidelines based upon childrens’ development and existing literature on children’s technology. This document is freely downloadable on the internet.



Some examples of usability issues and guidelines for preschoolers or young kids in general:• Make navigation icons based on ‘real life’, understandable for preschoolers, and test this. E.g. an image of

an ear is a clearer symbol for ‘sound’ than a loudspeaker. An open door will be clearer as an exit-symbol than a stoplight. Animated icons can help the child to understand the meaning of it.

• Use big boxed buttons to compensate poor mouse control. Below: image of cursor movements when targetting a button with the mouse, at different ages.

• Preschoolers are ‘mine-sweeping’ the screen, they follow no logical consistant main path for viewing the page and clicking on links.

• Multiple navigation is too confusing.• They don’t use the back button of navigator • Avoid scrolling (only with preschoolers). Older kids now accept scrolling, but preschoolers don’t understand

how to use scrollbars. E.g. below: alternative to scrolling from Kido’z.

• Bury links for adults or other age groups in pages that are diffi cult to reach for the preschooler, e.g. small text links in the footer. Retain a consistent user experience for the preschooler, adapted to his age.

adult age 5 age 4



• Use audio instructions, but be aware that the preschooler will not retain those. The audio instruction should be repeated at the moment the user needs it. Short phonic stimuli like beeps are even only kept in the short memory for 2 seconds.

• Provide immediate feedback on errors, helping preschoolers to learn from their experiences: children do learn quickly from previous actions.

• Point and click movements are easier than drag-and-drop movements of objects (e.g. colouring tool). • It should be easy for a preschooler to go directly to his favourite activity, and not force him to go through a

long activity path fi rst.• Avoid the usage of arrow keys for a preschooler. They will prefer to click with the mouse.• Reduce the number of buttons and choices, and always make sure those are above the fold.• Take into account that they won’t distinguish your advertising banners from the rest of your site.

Advertising online towards preschoolersWhat’s the use of targeting kids in the fi rst place?Research confi rmed the fact that kids infl uence mom’s purchases. Advertising defi nitely infl uences the kids, who then infl uence mum. Babies are requesting brands as soon as they can speak.How are ads interpreted by preschoolers?

• Marketers are increasingly trying to blur the line between advertising and content, so it’s not suprising that kids cannot distinguish between the two.

• I have this nice example of my own preschooler child, who is exceptionnally aware of advertising because of my job, when asked, ‘Is this man always telling the full truth’ answers: ‘No, I suppose he might sometimes not know very well himself and make a mistake when he explains about this product’.

Is this the marketer’s dream? Not necessarily!• The content behind an ad may not be appropriate (e.g. containing a lot of text, or not what they expected,

cfr. illustration below of ad leading to text page).• They will feel frustrated and cheated.• This will refl ect upon the brand/product and upon the original site, which they will leave.

Norman Nielsen Group gives some recommendations to avoid this effect, one of them is that matching ads to content will lead to less frustration.



Legal framework & ethical considerationsSome remarks about advertising to kids in general: • There is a lobby against targeting too young kids• Unability to decript the publicitary character of advertising• Unwanted content• Lack of clear regulation, esp. after the ‘5 minutes rule’ was abolished in Belgium (2006).Since 2007: a code of conduct concerning kids advertising was accepted (e.g. no violence in kids advertisements).

Computer/television/screen usage: Not everybody happy, and a lot of research has been done about the consequences of computer usage by young children, with as main attention points:• Obesitas• Social skills• Attention span problems such as ADHD,…• Lack of motherly affection (screen apps as nanny)• Screen addiction: Example of drawing of kid of ‘the ideal bedroom of the future’But for all this, different studies show contradictory results and some even prove that computer usage is positive for developing social skills.

Kids online ethical concerns: The EU has a big research project about this, the EU ‘Kids Online’ project (“Enhancing knowledge regarding European children’s use, risk and safety online”), lead by Sonia Livingstone. The latest report focusses on children aged 9 to 16.

Some of the issues:• Safety • Privacy• Unwanted content• Advertising• Cyber-bullying• Parental control• Children submitting internet content as their own for homework• Online profi les of kids created by parents against the kids’

consent (lifetime effect, digital footprint that cannot be erased)• Etc….!

Often there is ‘self-regulation’ to comply with ‘strictest interpretation of rules’, certainly within multinationals operating under different regulations, as this is a sensitive matter, especially where it concerns privacy and capture of children’s personal data.



Digital mumsAs said, mums and preschoolers are together in the purchasing decision process… The kids infl uence is the biggest in the earliest years, losing more and more importance until the child turns 5. From then on, the infl uence remains stable for a number of years. But we will now have a look at some ways to target the mums themselves directly.

The gen Y mums are the fi rst to have grown up digitally themselves, they will be educating in the coming years a generation of kids that grew up from birth so to speak with the internet. Their mums have a completely digital lifestyle, and internet is available in more than 9 out of 10 of those households. From the coming years on, due to the media consumption of this generation of mothers, the primary medium through which you could infl uence the purchase decisions of a mum will be online.

One very good way to reach digital mums is through newsletters: Digital mums really embrace newsletters. A US research from Cafemum and Razorfi sh found that 80% of mums look forward to offers and info on preferred brands via email.This goes up to 85% when coupon offers are expected in the mailbox.

A second very good way to reach digital mums is through their social networks:As to their so valued ‘me-time’, Gen X and Gen Y mothers mention as a favourite way to spend: Facebook with 39% before reading magazines (31%). Mums on Facebook are 20% more present than average adults.

Moms are looking to social networks for advice and information, not just on life issues but on purchasing decisions.Moms are the ultimate word of mouth champions: Babycenter measured that pregnant & new mums have the highest amounts of conversations and mentions of brands.

• Build word of mouth components into your campaigns• Encourage participation, collaboration, contribution• Make it easy to share.



References & further reading

About the cognitive and emotional development of preschoolers

Weaving a Library Web. A Guido to Designing Children’s websites. Helene Blowers. Robin Bryan. ©2004 by the American Library Association.

Emotional Development in Preschool Age Children - By C. Seefeldt|B.A. Wasik - Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

Cognitive Development in Preschoolers - By C. Seefeldt|B.A. Wasik - Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

Designing for children 101. Shelley-Ann J. West, 2009.

About the offer for kids on the internet

The World Wide Web for Kids & Parents - Viraf Mohta

Lily Miller -5 year old- explains the iPod and the internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-f5XQHooW8

Internetfi lters. Is er een browser voor kinderen? on Pepermunt.net

About the electronic media usage of preschoolers

Zero to Six. Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fall 2003.

Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2005.

Digital Childhood: Electronic Media and Technology Use Among Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers. Elizabeth A. Vandewater, PhD - Victoria J. Rideout, MA - Ellen A. Wartell PhD - Xuan Huang, MA - June H. Lee, PhD - Mi-suk Shim, PhD. in PEDIATRICS Vol. 119 No. 5 May 2007.

Technology and young children: How 4-7 year olds perceive their own use of computers - Susan McKenney & Joke Voogt. Published in Journal Computers in Human Behavior archive Volume 26 Issue 4, July, 2010.

The Digital Life of the Preschool Child What Parents and Teachers Need to Know - Louise S. Pavia, PhDYoungstown State University, Ohio - Mary F. Swanson, EdD - Northeastern State University, Oklahoma

Handbook of Children and the Media - Dorothy G. Singer

Kids & Media / Design Analysis. Spring 2006. Bernard, King, McGaw, Paradis, Tallacksen.



About usability for preschooler websites

Nielsen Norman Group Report: Usability of Websites for Children: Design Guidelines for Targeting Users Aged 3–12 Years. Second Edition. Sep. 2010.

Designing technology for Young Children: Guidelines Grounded in a Literature Investigation on Childe Development and Children’s Technology - by J.H. Gelderblom. June 2008.

Designing User Experiences for Children. By Heather Nam. Published: May 17, 2010 on www.uxmatters.com

Interaction Design and Children. Foundation and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction, vol 1, no4, pp 277-392, 2007. By Juan Pablo Hourcade.

Drag-and-drop versus point-and-click mouse interaction styles for children. by Kori M. Inkpen. Editor Jonathan Grudin (One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA) - Publisher ACM New York, NY, USA

Ten Design Lessons from the Literature on Child Development and Children’s Use of Technology. Heléne Gelderblom and Paula Kotzé. June, 2008. IDC 2009 Papers.

Uden, L.,Dix, A., Iconic Interfaces for Kids on the Internet. In: (eds.): Proceedings of IFIP WorldComputer Congress, August 2000. Beijing, 2000, 279-286.

Being Playful – learning from children. Alan Dix

About advertising online towards preschoolers (see also next chapter)

McNeal, J. & Yeh, C. (1993, June). Born to Shop. American Demographics, pp 34-39.

What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids - Daniel Acuff

The Kids Market: Myths & Realities - James U. McNeal

Born to Buy: The Commercialised Child and the New Consumer Culture - Juliet Schor

Notes about Marketing to Babies and Toddlers. As-Sunnah newsletter, Vol. 2 Issue No. 3

Food and beverage advertising to children. When is a child a child? - World Federation of Advertisers. July 2007.

Qrius - Leefwereld van kinderen - Euroforum congres Trends in kidsmarketing Efteling, 22 mei 2007

About the legal framework and the ethical considerations (see also previous chapter and About the electronic media usage of preschoolers)

Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet - Kathryn C. Montgomery

Children And the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities - Sonia Millwood Livingstone



Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks For Children - Sonia M. Livingstone

Hood, D. (2000). Is advertising to kids wrong? Marketers respond. Kidscreen, November 15

Ga Ga Goo Goo.. 73% Of Toddlers Are Digitally Active. By Toby Leftly. On www.techi.com.

Linn, S. (2004). Consuming Kids: The hostile takeover of childhood. New York: Free Press, pp. 41-60

Healy, M. (2004). Young TV watchers may be at risk for later attention problems. Los Angeles Times. May 24.

Alliance for Childhood. (2000). Fools Gold: A critical look at computers in our childhood. College Park, MD: Alliance for Childhood.

A Guide To Child Safety Online - Raising Kids on the Internet - Aldric Chang.

Je kind op het internet. Erno Mijland.

Resources — Commercialism & Children - http://www.mediaed.org/wp/commchildren-resources

About the digital mums

Digital mom - A two-part report published by Razorfi sh and Cafémom.Mom WOM. New Insights into Word of Mouth Conversations Among Mothers of Young Children. - April 23, 2008. Keller Fay Group. © BabyCenter LLC.

Understanding the modern mom. Oct 2009, David Stutts, Luckie.

Marketing to Moms: Make Sure to Send Her An Email. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By David Bohan.

Marketing to Moms: Moms, Twitter and Your Brand. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By David Bohan.

WhyMomsRule.com Poll: Insights on Moms’ “Me Time”. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By David Bohan.

Marketing to the New Super Consumer Mom & Kid - Tim Coffey

WhyMoms Rule.com 2010 Generations Survey - David Bohan.

Unicast - What Women Want From the Web Report - Summer 2010

Trillion-dollars Moms: Marketing To A New Generation Of Mothers - Maria T. Bailey

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World - Don Tapscott

Moms Who Blog: A Marketing Powerhouse - By Debra Aho Williamson. October 2010.



Marketing to Moms: Mom Is More Likely to ‘Say Something Nice’ When Sharing Product Information. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By Shari Day.

Marketing to Moms: Moms Rule the Internet and Traditional Media. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By David Bohan.

Kidfl uence: The Marketers Guide to Understanding and Reaching Generation Y-Kids, Tween S, and Teens - Anne Sutherland

sMarketing to Moms: Getting Down to the Nitty-Gritty. On Whymomsrule.com, A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding America’s Number One Consumer Group, Moms. By David Bohan.

Engaging Moms with Social Media. Prepared by: Lauren Candito, Social Media Solutions



Some references of Dreammachine (in alfabetical order)

ABR-BVI | ACLVB | ALD | AOS-Group | Apogheos (Sodexo) | Atoma | Auxifi na/Gemoney | Berquin Notarissen

| Biolente | Boekenbeurs | Casa | Contact Centres | Cereal (Belgium & Netherlands) (Nutrition et Santé) |

Chaudfontaine (The Coca Cola Company) | Coulidoor | Dixan (Henkel) | Equipal | Eurocities | European

Commission | Fiducre (ING) | Fleuril (Henkel) | Foets | Francotyp | Gerlinea (Nutrition et Santé) | Graham |

Herta (Nestlé) | Isostar (Nutrition et Santé) | Hulst (city) | Kinderrechtencommissariaat (Vlaams Parlement) | La

Fougeraie | Le Chat (Henkel) | Limolux | Little Indian | Microsoft Belgium | Magnecaps (Nycomed) | Mistral-

airco | MSN (Microsoft) | Nederlandse Federatie Goud en Zilver | Oasis (GlaxoSmithKline) | Oceanic | Onskot |

Packard Bell | Persil (Belgium & Netherlands) (Henkel) | Plaisirs d’Hiver (Région Bruxelloise) | Plugingaps (Prov. Vl-

Brabant) | Ricoré (Nestlé) | roomwithaview | Silan (Belgium & Netherlands) (Henkel) | Sony Home Entertainment

| Strategie | Strategie Design | Torfs | Toshiba | Vitabis (Danone) | Webpost | Witte Reus (Henkel Netherlands) |

Xbox (Microsoft) | Zaaizaadinfo (VLAM)



Preschoolers and their mums on the web

Gerda Van Damme | Dreammachine



Business

Preschoolers & their mums on the web