Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Paige

As I’m starting to create prototypes of app screens and illustrations, I wanted to do some research on how I can use colour to design effectively for children.

My target audience for my app is children of primary school age, particularly 9–11 year olds. I remembered being taught in year 2 of uni about how colour is an important factor in the design of any product, as it conveys a certain emotion and can therefore influence or motivate the user.

I decided to look into using colour when designing for children.

I think one of the first things I automatically thought when I knew that I would be designing for children was that everything needed to be bold and bright to keep their attention. I’ve come to realise, however, that this could actually be harmful to the UX. If everything is bold and bright, users (kids and adults, alike) won’t be able to distinguish interactive elements from static elements, which would result in them aimlessly clicking (or banging on a screen) to find the interactive spots.

Children love colours, so there is more leeway here with being able to use bright colour-palettes or just more colours than what would be appropriate for an interface designed for adults.

Taking a lesson from how children learn right from wrong; feedback is essential. Colour can be used to help them understand that feedback. For example, in the UK, we grow up learning that red means wrong/stop, and green means correct/go.

Using green on a message which tells the child they got the answer right, will reinforce the message, and as they continue using the app, the consistency will allow them to make visual links between getting the answer right and, for example, scoring a point. Mixing feedback with a message stating the answer was correct, and using the colour red, would send conflicting messages, therefore consistency is key.

How this relates to my Major Project

My main aim of the app is to encourage children to learn sign language. To do this, I’m going to need to attract their attention, and keep hold of it. Colour is a key way for me to do this.

Throughout my app I will be using illustrations to assist with the learning. This is where I will be able to use colour to keep it interesting.

For example: When learning about animals, the user will make their way through a series of screens featuring illustrations of the animal’s environment. If we take a turtle — they tend to live in the sea. If we look at images of the sea-life environment, it is clear that there is an abundance of colour, and therefore plenty of opportunity for me to enhance these colours to create a bright, colourful and aesthetically pleasing scene.

This is also going to be a crucial point when creating a brand. I will need to take into consideration what emotions the colour I use conveys to the user.

Obviously with it being children there is a little more room to be creative, but using bright colours such as yellow, orange, red or purple will look interesting and bring forth emotions to aid in learning:

Yellow: optimism, warmth, clarity — bright, attractive, treasure, rich.
Orange: creative, youthful, enthusiastic — centre of attention, kid-friendly.
Red: powerful, warm, energetic, urgent — stands out, exciting, bold.
Purple: imaginative, royal, confidence, wisdom — draws people in, loyalty.

A good article to read on this topic of designing logos and brands is: ‘The Psychology of Colour in Logo Design’. It reiterates some of the points I’ve made above.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href">https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href</a>

Using Colour to Design for Children was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Using Colour to Design for Children

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