Features of the development of children's mobile applications. Practical advice
Hello. This spring was rich in conferences devoted to mobile development. We were lucky to take part in some of them as speakers and moderators. We told about personal experience in developing children's mobile applications. Listened to other well-known developers of children's applications. Exchange experience and advice. In this article we want to share with you useful practical tips for developing children's applications.
We will talk about:
Children's application for each age must have a certain set of properties. An application for a 2-year-old child will be different from an application for a 4-year-old, and even more so it should be completely different for a 7-year-old child. Therefore, before starting work on the application, clearly define how old it is.
')
The application must have a specific purpose. For example, to teach a child to count or just take a while. Do not make a monster. :)
Make navigation in the application simple. Children do not understand the nesting of objects at all and will simply be confused in navigation. Let there be an endlessly scrolling list.
If your application is designed for an audience of up to 5 years, keep in mind that children at this age still cannot read, therefore each task in the application should be announced.
Educational content cannot be made universal. Each country has its own teaching methods. Have your own mentality. Need to consider local user preferences. Therefore, "just picked up and translated" is not a ride. Reach local native speakers and educators.
Animation is beautiful and spectacular. If you start to embed animation in an application, you have to embed it everywhere. Since against the background of animated objects static look boring. Thus, there is a desire to animate everything. All this ultimately translates into time costs. You can do without animation. Always weigh your work.
Parents should feel the benefits of your application. The application, on the one hand, should occupy the child, on the other hand, should not constantly require parent intervention in the game. Give your parents a break and they will love your application.
Test your applications on a real target audience. Involve children in testing. Test the application on your children, on friends of children, go to kindergartens, schools. There is nothing more to add. Test!
Question to all. Do you think it is ethical to make money on children? You are right: children do not pay anything - parents pay. Buying an app is no different from buying a toy. And how much the parent will like the application and how much time the child will spend with it will depend on how much money the adult is willing to leave in your application. If the application allows the child to study independently, and the adult has a little rest, then the chance to get $ 1 is much higher.
It's simple. If you want the application to fall into a special children's category or under a certain age rating, follow the rules of stor. For Windows Store, you will need to receive app evaluation certificates. For iOS, the introduction of protection against random purchases.
Give the user the basic functionality for FREE. Show what he gets in the paid version (Trial-mode). Sell extra buns. We chose the Freemium model for ourselves: we provide the basic functionality for free, and we additionally sell sound and additional games.
Say no to ADVERTISING in children's apps. This is the worst way to monetize apps for kids. Children all the time click on the banner and exit the application. Parents do not like such products and minus them.
Larger payments are less popular, but their income is much higher than small payments. It is easier for parents to take and pay once and buy everything than to buy something separately. In the application " Fairy Tale for Children " users can buy one fairy tale separately or purchase all the fairy tales at once at a discount. Pack purchases are much more than payments for individual tales.
There is a very interesting article on this topic. I recommend everyone to read it: Pricing experiments. Features of human perception .
Do not let the user of your product go to other applications. Create a series for different ages and on different topics. Let users remember you as a brand!
In addition to the main markets with children's categories, there are a lot of third-party specialized children's markets. Post there.
In some applications on the main page we show ads for our other products (Splash Screen). Moreover, if the user has already installed one of them, he is not shown in the banner. Want to get rid of ads - install all our applications and you will see a clean SplashScreen. Use the power and power of all your applications - do cross-promo.
Once we accidentally discovered that the audience’s stream to our site is very large and we don’t know how to handle this stream correctly. We decided to redirect users to our groups on social networks and saw that the number of group subscribers began to grow sharply. Thus, we have temporarily decided to abandon the site and collect an audience in groups in which we share the latest news with users. The VKontakte group is designed for a Russian-speaking audience. Group in Facebook - in English.
Hurry to be present everywhere. Capture as many popular platforms as possible. Be the first on these platforms and get support from the platforms themselves.
And to make it easier to capture new platforms, write applications on cross-platform engines.
It is very hard to break into modern application dominance. Therefore, go directly to your audience. And where is the audience of children's applications? That's right, on children's portals and sites for moms. Tell about your applications there.
Manufacturers of children's tablets are interested in pre-installing high-quality content on devices. Parents want to buy devices on which everything is already there, which do not need to be configured. Children's mobile tablets can be a good additional channel of communication with the audience.
Praise is good. But the sense of it is not enough. Therefore, the most important comments are comments with criticism and wishes. Listen to them. Aggregate requests and implement first of all what most users ask for.
Ask users to leave ratings for your application. If the user has left a negative review, try to contact him, find out what the reason is, ask for a correction (Android, and in the near future Windows stores, allows you to do this).
Often emails from users who ask how to pay for the application come to the support service, and we explain in detail and tell you what payment methods there are, provide links to video instructions.
Often it happens that they receive empty letters (with texts, rubbish or photos) that make up and send our young users of the application. We used to simply ignore these letters and delete them, but then we decided to answer them and tell us how to protect the phone. We recommend to everyone our Kid's Shell (about which we wrote earlier )
Even if you translate the application description into all languages using Google Translate, it will increase the growth of your application downloads. The graph clearly shows that when the description of one of our applications was translated into all available languages on Google Play, the download of the application increased by 30%.
Embed analytics in your applications, as well as use services for aggregating statistics across all storach.
We use:
After all, you see, it is interesting to observe how in real time moms use the Breastfeeding application for children and feed children around the world.
You will not believe it, but our main enemy (in terms of application downloads and revenue) is good weather. If the sun shines on weekends, we see a decline in downloads and earnings. If it is raining or freezing outside, downloads and earnings will increase.
Also, a very noticeable decline in activity is observed in summer. Everything is clear here: many leave for vacations and take their children to the villages with their grandparents.
Making children's mobile apps is not easy at all. Here, as in any industry, there are specific features and pitfalls. We hope that our practical experience and advice will help you.
All success.
Sincerely, Oleg Demyanov, WebCanape Team
and the mobile development unit Whisper Arts
We will talk about:
- designing children's applications,
- testing,
- monetization
- promotion.
Segment Target Audience
Children's application for each age must have a certain set of properties. An application for a 2-year-old child will be different from an application for a 4-year-old, and even more so it should be completely different for a 7-year-old child. Therefore, before starting work on the application, clearly define how old it is.
')
Determine the genre and purpose of the application
The application must have a specific purpose. For example, to teach a child to count or just take a while. Do not make a monster. :)
Do not do deep nesting
Make navigation in the application simple. Children do not understand the nesting of objects at all and will simply be confused in navigation. Let there be an endlessly scrolling list.
Do tips for kids
If your application is designed for an audience of up to 5 years, keep in mind that children at this age still cannot read, therefore each task in the application should be announced.
Be careful with localization.
Educational content cannot be made universal. Each country has its own teaching methods. Have your own mentality. Need to consider local user preferences. Therefore, "just picked up and translated" is not a ride. Reach local native speakers and educators.
Animation is beautiful, but not always justified.
Animation is beautiful and spectacular. If you start to embed animation in an application, you have to embed it everywhere. Since against the background of animated objects static look boring. Thus, there is a desire to animate everything. All this ultimately translates into time costs. You can do without animation. Always weigh your work.
Parents should feel the benefits of the application.
Parents should feel the benefits of your application. The application, on the one hand, should occupy the child, on the other hand, should not constantly require parent intervention in the game. Give your parents a break and they will love your application.
Testing
Test your applications on a real target audience. Involve children in testing. Test the application on your children, on friends of children, go to kindergartens, schools. There is nothing more to add. Test!
Parents do not buy the application, and their free time
Question to all. Do you think it is ethical to make money on children? You are right: children do not pay anything - parents pay. Buying an app is no different from buying a toy. And how much the parent will like the application and how much time the child will spend with it will depend on how much money the adult is willing to leave in your application. If the application allows the child to study independently, and the adult has a little rest, then the chance to get $ 1 is much higher.
Consider the rules stor
It's simple. If you want the application to fall into a special children's category or under a certain age rating, follow the rules of stor. For Windows Store, you will need to receive app evaluation certificates. For iOS, the introduction of protection against random purchases.
Choose the appropriate monetization model
Give the user the basic functionality for FREE. Show what he gets in the paid version (Trial-mode). Sell extra buns. We chose the Freemium model for ourselves: we provide the basic functionality for free, and we additionally sell sound and additional games.
Banner advertising is the worst way to make money in children's apps.
Say no to ADVERTISING in children's apps. This is the worst way to monetize apps for kids. Children all the time click on the banner and exit the application. Parents do not like such products and minus them.
Give the user a choice
Larger payments are less popular, but their income is much higher than small payments. It is easier for parents to take and pay once and buy everything than to buy something separately. In the application " Fairy Tale for Children " users can buy one fairy tale separately or purchase all the fairy tales at once at a discount. Pack purchases are much more than payments for individual tales.
There is a very interesting article on this topic. I recommend everyone to read it: Pricing experiments. Features of human perception .
Create not an application - create a brand and a series of applications
Do not let the user of your product go to other applications. Create a series for different ages and on different topics. Let users remember you as a brand!
Publish applications in specialized sites
In addition to the main markets with children's categories, there are a lot of third-party specialized children's markets. Post there.
Use cross promo through other apps.
In some applications on the main page we show ads for our other products (Splash Screen). Moreover, if the user has already installed one of them, he is not shown in the banner. Want to get rid of ads - install all our applications and you will see a clean SplashScreen. Use the power and power of all your applications - do cross-promo.
Create a group and gather in it a target audience.
Once we accidentally discovered that the audience’s stream to our site is very large and we don’t know how to handle this stream correctly. We decided to redirect users to our groups on social networks and saw that the number of group subscribers began to grow sharply. Thus, we have temporarily decided to abandon the site and collect an audience in groups in which we share the latest news with users. The VKontakte group is designed for a Russian-speaking audience. Group in Facebook - in English.
Not limited to one platform
Hurry to be present everywhere. Capture as many popular platforms as possible. Be the first on these platforms and get support from the platforms themselves.
And to make it easier to capture new platforms, write applications on cross-platform engines.
Publish reviews and news on thematic sites
It is very hard to break into modern application dominance. Therefore, go directly to your audience. And where is the audience of children's applications? That's right, on children's portals and sites for moms. Tell about your applications there.
Pay attention to the manufacturers of children's tablets
Manufacturers of children's tablets are interested in pre-installing high-quality content on devices. Parents want to buy devices on which everything is already there, which do not need to be configured. Children's mobile tablets can be a good additional channel of communication with the audience.
Listen to users
Praise is good. But the sense of it is not enough. Therefore, the most important comments are comments with criticism and wishes. Listen to them. Aggregate requests and implement first of all what most users ask for.
Work with users
Ask users to leave ratings for your application. If the user has left a negative review, try to contact him, find out what the reason is, ask for a correction (Android, and in the near future Windows stores, allows you to do this).
Often emails from users who ask how to pay for the application come to the support service, and we explain in detail and tell you what payment methods there are, provide links to video instructions.
Often it happens that they receive empty letters (with texts, rubbish or photos) that make up and send our young users of the application. We used to simply ignore these letters and delete them, but then we decided to answer them and tell us how to protect the phone. We recommend to everyone our Kid's Shell (about which we wrote earlier )
Translate the application description into all languages
Even if you translate the application description into all languages using Google Translate, it will increase the growth of your application downloads. The graph clearly shows that when the description of one of our applications was translated into all available languages on Google Play, the download of the application increased by 30%.
Collect and analyze statistics
Embed analytics in your applications, as well as use services for aggregating statistics across all storach.
We use:
- Google Analytics - to collect information about the launches of the application and analyze user behavior within the application;
- Distimo - for easy tracking of information on all the stores in one place;
- Crashlytics - for tracking crashes and errors within applications
After all, you see, it is interesting to observe how in real time moms use the Breastfeeding application for children and feed children around the world.
Consider seasonality and weather
You will not believe it, but our main enemy (in terms of application downloads and revenue) is good weather. If the sun shines on weekends, we see a decline in downloads and earnings. If it is raining or freezing outside, downloads and earnings will increase.
Also, a very noticeable decline in activity is observed in summer. Everything is clear here: many leave for vacations and take their children to the villages with their grandparents.
Conclusion
Making children's mobile apps is not easy at all. Here, as in any industry, there are specific features and pitfalls. We hope that our practical experience and advice will help you.
All success.
Sincerely, Oleg Demyanov, WebCanape Team
and the mobile development unit Whisper Arts
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/219865/
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