A Delightful New Children's Browser
My nephews (ages 6 & 7), are very much into computers so it is rather easy for me to get them involved with something fun and new to test.Together we tested Zoodles.
Zoodles is a new kids browser based on Adobe's AIR platform that aims to give kids a safe place to play and learn online.
I built a profile for each of my nephews and Zoodles generated a playground for them based on their age. Visually, the interface looks cute and very cheerful - the kids LOVE it. But as they played along I noticed they were experiencing difficulties in understanding the functional flow. One simple button (an arrow) "Go Back" is missing. The navigation is easy at first, but the deeper in you go, the harder it is to go back. If the pages were numbered, it might be easier for the kids to jump to a certain page to find their favorite game.
When opening a video or a game - it should be very CLEAR to a kid where to click in order to go elsewhere. Not only is it not clear, I think Zoodles made it evne more difficult by allowing the ability to go back to the site where they've aggregated the content from.
Ads are also unnecessary:
Having said that, I have to admit the kids enjoyed browsing the site, I just needed to sit next to them and help them with the navigation from time to time.
The site is a whole different story. It simultaneously syncs with the desktop app to show a full stats about your child's activity. To be specific, it gives the most powerful analysis report that I've seen so far. With the Zoodles Parent Dashboard, you can view everything your child has been doing online, see reports on the things they are interested in, and really understand, and participate in your child’s learning journey. You can also see which educational skills your child has been developing.
My belief is that Zoodles will be adding the critical missing features soon based on the parent feedback. The service is still new and I give it credit for improving itself in such a short time.
I can't write a story about kids' browser and not mention Kidoz. I think they've done an amazing job so far and you most definitely need to check this service out as well. However, per Zoodles's site statistics, it is a winner.
Labels: browser, e-learning, kids
5 Comments:
I am first to comment.. :-)
A baby sitter would be.. :-)
Orli,
This is Mark from Zoodles. I want to thank you and your newphews for checking out Zoodles. I thought I could give you some insights into some of the design decisions we made as well as some of the issues you noticed about the product.
First, we have done a lot of usability testing with children of all ages. One of the things we found is that a "back" button doesn't work well for younger children since many of the activities that children interact with are all flash based, so the "context" of "back" is lost and doesn't work consistently. Now having said that, some children might benefit from a back button and it sounds like your nephews might be some of them.
Thanks for the feedback about the experience after clicking on a video... this is something we have seen during testing and will try and address soon.
With respect to ads, I wanted to note that we are not serving these ads, rather they are from the sites that children are going to through our browser. We are not big fans of these ads either!
I am glad you liked the parent dashboard! If you have a minute you might want to check out some of the parental control features. I have a 5 year old daughter and we are working with her on her early reading and math skills so we use the "Educational Controls" in Zoodles to promote more math and reading content to her.
Anyway, thanks for the write-up and feedback and if you (or anyone else reading this) have any questions feel free to email me Mark AT Zoodles dot Com.
Hi,
You have a great blog! Keep up the good work!
Thanks,
cari duit
belajar seo
Hi,
This looks very beautiful. Gone are the days where children never used to know what a computer is. Now its really great to hear and watch these. Great post.
An interesting idea. best of luck with Zoodles guys!
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