Archive for the 'Handhelds/Mobile Computing' Category

Monday, November 3rd, 2014

The following is an article I wrote that appears in the November 2014 issue of Children’s Technology Review.

Photo of a stopwatch,  measuring the milliseconds it takes for a tablet to respond to a child's tap request.

If we look at the amount of time a child has to enjoy being a child, it works out to something like 6, 753 days, or 157, 680 hours. Every hour of childhood is important, as is every second. Who knew, but milliseconds seem to matter as well. Engaging a child successfully in an interactive experience can boil down to what happens within a fraction of a second.

While working in the children’s interactive industry for many years, there’s one question I’m asked more than any other: “What is the single most important thing needed to successfully engage a child in an interactive experience?” In today’s world that means successful engagement through tablets and apps, of which there are many things to consider. Engaging characters, compelling stories, a strong game mechanic, lots of user testing, a willingness to change something for the better when developing, an understanding of child development and child related research. But that’s not where I start. These are all “must have” components of a successful interactive experience. So what’s the one item that will make or break your app? Responsivity.

It’s usually at this point the person asking the question says “Huh? What do you mean? Responsivity?” Even if the app includes all the must have items mentioned above, if the app does not respond immediately to a child’s request, usually in the form of a tap on a screen, your product is dead. It won’t be used. End of story. The time you have to successfully respond to a child’s request can be measured in milliseconds.

Let me share a recent article to help crystallize just how little time you have. I’ll reference a technology advance outside of the children’s industry. There have been some amazing discoveries in the virtual reality space in the last year. You know, those crazy headsets that cover your eyes and ears to deliver an otherworldly experience, be it on Oculus Rift or Morpheus.

The vision of this technology might one day deliver a mind blowing, life changing, “real” experience. Part of recent successes in this industry boil down to this:

a.) If a user makes a request through the technology (input),
b.) and the display in front of the person updates as quickly as possible (output),
c.) the more believable and enjoyable the experience.

However, with a slow update, the user will feel nauseous. Literally. This performance, or latency, can actually be measured. A response time longer than 30 milliseconds will make someone sick.

For years the virtual reality industry has been unable to break a performance speed below 60 milliseconds, and in the process of trying, has made a lot of virtual reality testers sick. The breakthrough is this industry will be when they bring the performance issue down to about 15 milliseconds, which some say is now within reach.

In reaching that goal, virtual reality designers have had to look at everything that causes latency: Computer processing speed, software, cables, accelerometers, display screens, … everything. (See background info in Wired for more)

Let’s put that in context to an interactive experience for a child. What are the ingredients that make up the response time of an app? Just like the discoveries found with the virtual reality example above, the same components are equally important here. Interactive responsivity can be simmered down to what hardware and software combinations you use.

Lets start with the hardware. We’re talking about tablets. Are all tablet technologies created equal? If you look at the responsivity of just the hardware component of a tablet surface alone, though the differences are small, it appears the response time of a tap is hardly equal across all devices. Have a look at how long a single tap takes to register through the hardware of a tablet:


Tablet Response time (in milliseconds)
Apple iPad Mini 75 milliseconds
Apple iPad (4th generation) 81 milliseconds
Microsoft Surface RT 95 milliseconds
Amazon Kindle Fire 114 milliseconds
Samsung Galaxy Tab 168 milliseconds

(Note: A shorter response time is better. Source)

Okay, no big deal, right? We’re talking just a fraction of a second, and we’re not even measuring hardware latency from devices specifically targeted to children in toy stores, which by the way use cheaper (AKA slower) chips and tablet surface components.

Now we need to add in latency that is introduced from software. What software tools are being used to create apps for children? Most app-based software tools fall into one of two categories; native apps and non-native apps.

Native apps tend to be written with programming code that is “compiled.” Compiled code is translated into something a computer can understand at a machine level. Languages like C and C++ are compiled languages that tend to execute quickly.

Non-native apps may be created with a “wrapper”, something that can bundle together other kinds of “runtime” code, like JavaScript, HTML, and HTML5. Runtime code is not compiled. Runtime code reads like English, which is great for writing code quickly by humans, but not necessarily the best form to be understood quickly by computers. When this kind of code is executed at runtime, a tablet needs to interpret it, one line at a time, into something it can understand. Translating this runtime code on the fly is time consuming for any computing device, including tablets, and creates latency with a response back to the user.

When a tap or a swipe is sent to a native or non-native app, we’re still talking about a fraction of a second for this instruction to execute. However, just to put this in perspective, generally speaking, runtime code can take up to ten times longer to execute than compiled code depending on the processor being used. This can mean the difference between 2 and 20 milliseconds for a small number of lines of code to execute before the user receives a response. (Source 1, 2)

By now you may be doing some math in your head. Keep in mind, we’re still talking best possible scenario here. On top of all this hardware and software latency there’s the need to load assets (graphics, sound, video) in and out of memory. How memory management is handled can also add a lot of latency to an experience, more so for apps that download its content at runtime from the web as opposed to apps that bundle all of its content within the app locally. This is often where the difference between an experienced developer and an inexperienced developer pays off. Creating lean yet appealing art, animation, and audio is an art form, one that often adds to the benefit of “perceived” performance, and ultimately the end user’s experience. A talented developer also will know how to “mask” some of this latency, in a way that makes both the tablet’s processor, and the end user, very happy from a performance perspective.

So, do slow performing apps make kids sick? Maybe not literally like the virtual reality example cited earlier, but, many theorize that it can influence how engaged a child is in the experience. An app that is responsive can mean the difference between successfully engaging a child or making them not want to interact with an app at all. It can also influence your rating in CTR, which measures responsivity of every activity.

If you design products for children, immediacy is vital. Sluggishness can make you feel sick, and contribute to the death of an app.

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Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

[The following is an article I wrote that appeared on the Fred Rogers Center blog, March 18, 2014.]

It’s been quite a week in the children’s media world. While preparing for the week ahead last Sunday, I noticed an article on Huffington Post that was spreading virally through my friends on Facebook. The article was a call to ban all hand-held devices from children under the age of 12. Backing up the claim, the author cited a long list of research on why kids should not engage with screen media at all.

Unfortunately, she misread much of the research by making that cardinal error in research of confusing correlation with cause. For example, several studies have looked at ADHD and media use with children, and some have found a link between the two. But that doesn’t mean media causes ADHD. Maybe instead children who have been diagnosed with ADHD have a greater interest in media consumption, or there might be some third unknown factor that is the real root of the problem. This mistake is an all too often occurrence, especially with many sensational headline seeking journalists.

On top of this, she offered not a single mention of anything positive about screen media.

Shortly after the article was posted, two great responses to this piece were published. The first was by David Kleeman, Glenda Revelle and Jessica Taylor Piotrowski entitled 10 Reasons Why We Need Research Literacy, Not Scare Columns and the second was by Melinda Wenner Moyer of Slate called Hands Off My Kid’s iPad: A Huffington Post Blogger’s Shaky Case for Banning Hand-held Devices for Children. Both articles go through the original claims, piece by piece, and demonstrate what is wrong with the original argument.

While all of this was going on, a noteworthy voice from the children’s media research world, Dimitri Christakis, serendipitously published an opinion called Interactive Media Use at Younger Than the Age of 2 Years – Time to Rethink the American Academy of Pediatrics Guideline? You may be unfamiliar with Christakis’ work, but you probably know its impact. Years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a warning to parents that they should not allow their children under age 2 to engage in screen media use at all, and they should limit the screen time of children under age 3. Christakis’ earlier work helped shape this recommendation. In the meantime, parents who do let their children use their smartphone or tablet have been beating themselves up, feeling like terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parents.

Well, Christakis is now suggesting that there may very well be important differences between linear media use (also known as television) and interactive media (like apps that are used on smartphones and tablets.) While more research is still needed, his statement is a giant first step to recognizing that maybe, just maybe, smartphones and tablets can be a benefit to early learning in some circumstances.

With that said, parents reading this, please know that while not all screens are created equal, the same is true for interactive content. Not all apps for kids that claim they are helpful are good for your child. However, a smaller number of carefully and thoughtfully developed products, often ones that are guided by research and testing, can be of benefit to young children.

So how do you tell the difference? Here’s a few commonsense recommendations to help guide you:

  • Parents should only use screen media in moderation with their young child if they use it at all.
    • Never use it as a babysitter or a replacement for human contact.
    • Engage in interactive media together with your child; you will be surprised at how much that helps in the learning.
    • Know that not all media is created equal. Some apps are of great benefit to learning, others are nothing more than poison. Two resources to help determine which is which are Common Sense Media and Children’s Technology Review. These sites rate interactive media products, and their appropriateness for users of all ages.

    For those of you looking for more guidance, the Rogers Center’s Framework for Quality offers advice on how to identify quality media tools across a range of platforms.

    This discussion is far from over, but in just the last few days the conversation related to young children and interactive media use has taken a very large and important step forward. That’s good news for parents, and those of use who wish to do good for children in the interactive space. I can’t wait to see what next week brings.

    [Scott Traylor is the founder and CEO of 360KID, a service-based company specializing in research-informed development of interactive learning products for children.]

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  • Friday, November 1st, 2013

    Summarizing “Zero to Eight Children’s Media Use in America 2013″

    [The following is an article I wrote for the November 2013 issue of Children’s Technology Review. A PDF copy of the article from this magazine can be downloaded here.]

    A photo of Vicky Rideout from an earlier 2013 presentation

    For those of us that work in children’s media, there’s nothing like finding a fresh, data filled report.

    Zero to Eight Children’s Media Use in America 2013” is Vicki Rideout’s latest in a series of reports commissioned by Common Sense Media. Having followed Vicky’s work for more than a decade, I asked her for an overview of her findings.

    The first key finding is this: Television and video game use is down for children compared to just two years ago. (Yes, down, not up!) In addition, overall screen media use is down compared to what was recorded just two years ago.

    Television viewing in the bedroom is also down by a sizable amount. As with the television and video game drop Vicky says “I’d like to look back on these data points from a future report to see if this is a bump or a trend.” This finding does beg some additional questions that cannot be answered through the report, like has there been a drop in the number of televisions owned in the home? Has the drop in television viewing in the bedroom shifted to video viewing on a tablet in the bedroom? Vicky says it is too early to tell if this is a trend.

    According to Rideout “Little drops in each platform add up to a half hour of less screen time per day on traditional screens. Then when you add in the increase in mobile use it brings that number down to 20 minutes less screen time per day. While this drop in overall screen time is significant and noteworthy, I’d like to see what the research says in another two years.”

    There’s a lot of material in this report about tablet and related mobile media use. For example, two years ago only 8% of parents owned a tablet. “Today it’s 40% and children’s tablet ownership is nearly similar to that of their parents from the 2011 report. Years ago handheld video game manufacturers noted that when an older sibling purchased a new handheld gaming device, a younger sibling would ultimately receive the older device. Could the same thing be happening here with parents purchasing a new tablet and giving the children their old one? This report can’t answer that question specifically, but one thing is clear: Tablet ownership by children will increase in the years to come.

    Another key trend: there is a giant shift in media use, and “the tablet is a game changer.” Vicky told me that there is “some computer use among young children, starting as early as four years of age, but because the tablet has simplified the interface so much and made things so intuitive, we see really young children successfully using this platform. If a one or two year old child can turn the pages of a board book, that same child can touch and swipe a tablet. If that child can point to an image on a board book, then that child can launch an app. As a result, a large world of content is made available to these young children. The floor for how young children use this platform has gone way down compared to other technological innovations, even compared to the Wii, which was a huge leap forward in terms of intuitive use and interface deign.”

    In addition Vicky notes: “People keep saying how children are so technologically smart. We have that notion backwards. It’s the technology that’s become smart, so smart that a kid, or even a baby can use it. This change is also opening up access to content that is not just about passive video watching.

    “People keep asking me ‘Is this a good thing or a bad thing?’ Unless you believe that a screen per se is a bad thing for kids no matter what, I usually respond that this is just a thing, it’s just a tablet. The good or bad about a tablet depends on the quality of the content you share with a child through this new medium.”

    Vicky’s comments just begin to scratch the surface of what’s included in this new report. However, Vicky also shared she is working on a new report, focused on the same zero to eight demographic, but this time she’s writing it for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. This report will take a deep dive into educational media, eBooks, and joint media engagement (a fancy term for parents who share in the same media experience with their child). The scheduled date of release is January 23, 2014. We look forward to reading more!

    Related links:

    Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America 2013
    Common Sense Media

    VIDEO – Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology – Vicky Rideout interview (2013)
    360KID

    Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology (2013)
    Northwestern University


    VIDEO – Vicky Rideout interview – Zero to Eight Children’s Media Use Research Overview (2011)

    360KID

    Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America (2011)
    Common Sense Media

    Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (2010)
    Kaiser Family Foundation


    Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Yr-olds (2005)

    Kaiser Family Foundation

    The Effects of Electronic Media on Children Ages Zero to Six: A History of Research (2005)
    Kaiser Family Foundation

    Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers (2003)
    Kaiser Family Foundation

    Kids & Media @ The New Millennium (1999)
    Kaiser Family Foundation

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    Thursday, October 17th, 2013

    [This article was originally written for the Association of American Publishers (AAP) PreK-12 Learning Group and can be found here.]

    What do traditional publishers need to know to enter the digital world of publishing?

    The publishing world has been on the edge of major change now for well over a decade. Digital media and all the different content delivery platforms are here to stay, and the traditional print model is being challenged in many ways publishers have wished to avoid. I find myself in discussions where the old adage “Video killed the radio star” keeps coming up. The reality however is that video didn’t really kill the radio star, but it did change the future of radio forever. The same is true today with interactive devices, tablets, and smart phones. Traditional publishing is now and forever changed as a result of digital.

    I’ve worked in interactive product development for over 20 years now and put together a few thoughts about what is important to know in making the leap to digital. What “must-have” knowledge is important, and why? I offer you these top five observations.

    Interactive media is different

    That sounds obvious, but many publishers have difficulty in grasping the finer nuances of interactive media. Print media is largely a one-way conversation. Interactive media at its best draws in the user, as a participant, often times creating a two-way interactive conversation. Interactive content, the user interface, and the user experience are often different and unique for each user group or age. In print we may talk about the correct language level of the written word. In interactive there are usability considerations. In a nutshell passive media, like books, magazines, television, and movies, has a viewer; interactive media has a user.

    Understand the strengths (and place) of engineers and executive editors

    I’ve seen many a publisher hire a hot-shot engineer and relinquish all product development control to that person. The thinking is that “They should know how to make a successful product. They’re the engineer!” Unless that engineer has a great depth of experience in content, usability or instructional design, you are about to make the world’s worst interactive product. Related to this observation (and many people will hate what I have to share next, ) the same can be said about the executive editor. Editors often have a wealth of print and content experience and little to no interactive experience. This too is a common mistake, and one that really ruffles feathers at traditional publishers. There is a place for the editor, just as there is a place for the engineer, but knowing what talent works on what part of the project to make the best interactive learning experience is an effort in rethinking through the expertise of each member of your team. Traditional roles do not port to digital in a straight-forward way. Be prepared for some disruption.

    Have a road map

    The best interactive products have a development plan. Before a single line of code is written or pixel created in Photoshop a detailed plan is created that defines the product. Often times this road map for development is referred to as a design document, or design spec. Complex projects might also have a technical spec. These documents are not only helpful to bring an entire team up to speed about what exactly is being built, but they are also important documents for your quality assurance (or QA) testers. How will your development and QA team know when your product is actually done without a defined plan to compare against?

    [Related article: Want to Make an App for Kids? — Getting Started]

    Test your product

    There are a few different ways to test an interactive product, and all approaches are invaluable. First off, the quality assurance part of a project is not a line item expense that can be eliminated. I have seen executives cross it right off of a product plan as an unnecessary expense. Many cost conscious publishers mistakenly decide that quality assurance testing need not be part of something they’re working on. While you may have absolute faith in the content portion of your product because your team knows content, the best software development teams rely on QA testing to help improve the finished product. Many a product fails within moments after its release due to sloppy development, or even simple innocent coding mistakes that should have been caught and corrected during the QA process.

    Test with an audience

    An even bigger oversight is not testing a product during development with the target audience. A common complaint I hear from educational product companies is that kids are so engaged by videogames and television that they can’t compete from an interest or engagement perspective in the classroom. Well, what is it that game developers and broadcasters do to help ensure that kids love their products? They test their products with their target audience! When have you ever heard of such a thing in the publishing world?! That’s crazy talk right? Well, as different media formats mature, it might not be such a crazy idea in the future to test your interactive product out with the target audience that will ultimately use them. User testing could be the new normal in publishing. Even if you think the idea of user testing is crazy, trust me, you will learn something. At very least you will learn new, invaluable ways to shape future products. I can guarantee it.

    [Related article: Kid Testing and Facebook — What? Are You Crazy?!]

    While there are additional points I could add, having an understanding with the above list is a great place to start. Shipping a quality product by traditional publishing means is always hard and takes a team years of experience to master. Shipping a quality interactive product that engages an audience in the digital world is also hard. Understanding the differences between old and new media types is essential for future product success, and providing a path to step confidently into the future of digital publishing.

    Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 157 user reviews.

    Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

    [Note: this is an excerpt from the upcoming October 2012 issue of Children’s Technology Review.].

    Children's app developer Duck Duck Moose

    When it comes to apps that actively engage young children, one of the companies with products on every list is Duck Duck Moose Design. This three person studio — funny name and all – was one of the first to the children’s app scene, with an app called Wheels on the Bus.

    Duck Duck Moose is a three person start-up based in San Mateo, CA. It launched it’s first app in 2009; today there are 14 DDM titles, collectively accounting for about 2.4 million paid downloads (publisher numbers).

    On September 26, 2012, Duck Duck Moose announced it will be changing and expanding it’s business, with a $7 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Stanford University. This type of investment raises questions that every small publisher hopes to deal with. “What do we do with lots of money?” “Is it possible to grow in a smart way, and keep the focus on quality?” And more importantly, “is this type of investment, and the constraints that come with it, a blessing or a curse?”

    Of course, only time will tell. But we can say one thing for sure — Duck Duck Moose Design is once again charting new ground, as one of the first small mom-and-pop app publishers to get a big investment. Many other small children’s app publishers will be watching from the sidelines with great interest to see how this cash infusion will affect their work.

    Children's app developer Duck Duck Moose
    (Duck Duck Moose Founders Nicci Grabiel, Caroline Hu Flexer, and Michael Flexer)

    A full interview with DDM co-founder Caroline Hu Flexer will appear in the October issue of Children’s Technology Review. In anticipation of that issue’s release, here are a few questions from the full interview to come.

    Scott Traylor: Tell me about the first app you developed.

    Caroline Hu Flexer: As a hobby, we started designing the Wheels on the Bus app for our own child. My husband Michael, and our good friend Nicci Gabriel worked on developing the app part-time over a three month period. We all had other full-time jobs. We launched that app in 2009. Later that year we won a KAPi Award, our first children’s industry award, and that was the beginning. That’s when we realized that maybe this could become a business. Wheels on the Bus continues to sell three-and-a-half years after it’s launch, and it’s still in the top charts. It wasn’t until 2010 that Nicci and I started working full-time. Michael started full time in 2011. It was just the three of us up until early this year. Recently our good friend, Jesse Ambrose, a founding engineer at Siebel Systems with my husband Michael, joined our team full-time. The four of us basically created the first 11 titles. Today we’re a team of nine, including the three founders.

    ST: How has your thinking changed about developing apps for kids since you started?

    CHF: The core of it hasn’t changed. We’ve always put kids at the center of what we do, but we’re always learning different things with each app and with different ages we may be targeting. We’ve done a lot of different types of apps. We started with toddler apps, like The Wheels on the Bus, which had one or two things for a young child to focus on. We didn’t want our apps to be over-stimulating, to have too many things going on at the same time. From a developmental perspective, we wanted our apps for toddlers to have simple interactions, whereas as we develop for older children, our apps have been more open-ended and have evolved into more layered interactions. One example for older children is our Draw and Tell app, where children make their own drawings, record their own voices, and create their own story. It’s a very different approach to the interaction.

    ST: While there are many more big companies with big brands going into the children’s app business, would you say big business has seen big success from those efforts?

    CHF: There have been some successes. It’s still rare to find interesting new content. There are a lot of big children’s media companies that have good apps and include characters that really appeal to children, but I think it’s a very unique time where we can invent new experiences using new characters because it’s a new platform. We’re able to do something really creative, and I think that’s a pretty rare opportunity. There are not that many companies creating their own original story lines and characters. It’s much more fun to invent something new, and it’s a better business model for us too.

    The first children's app from Duck Duck Moose called Wheels on the Bus
    (The first children’s app from Duck Duck Moose called Wheels on the Bus)

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