Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and Best Practices

Advertisement How would you like to design a beautiful, colorful, stimulating website that is captivating, memorable and allows you to let your creative juices flow without the need to worry too much about conventional usability and best practices? In today’s Web design market, it’s rare that such a project would present itself — unless you were asked to design a website for children! Websites designed for children have been largely overlooked in Web design articles and roundups, but there are many beautiful and interesting design elements and layouts presented on children’s websites that are worthy of discussion and analysis. There are also a number of best practices that are exclusive to Web design for children’s sites — practices that should usually not be attempted on a typical website. This article will showcase a number of popular commercial websites targeted towards children with an analysis of trends, elements and techniques used to help keep children interested and stimulated.

Composition and Design Principles ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everybody immediately responds to subject matter in art. A picture of a butterfly and a picture of a snake do not get the same response. In addition to subject matter*, the formal aspects of visual composition are like the grammar of a language. The use of design principles applied to the visual elements is like visual grammar. TEACHING TIP Art vocabulary can be taught along with every project. *Glossary: "Subject matter" is similar to "topic" or "content" when teaching art. Six Visual Elements (art elements) top of page We think of the elements as the basic visual material with which to make art. Some Design Principles or design rules (some creative artists purposely break rules) top of page This list is an example list. Balance is the consideration of visual weight and importance. Variety - You create variety when elements are changed. Motion. Sometimes it has to do with orientation. Depth.

Features and concept As of this writing ‘projection mapping’ is one of the fastest growing mediums, being used in a variety of artistic and commercial projects. The basic idea: take a projector, point it at a physical volume like an object or an architectural element, and then map an image onto it. The MadMapper provides a simple and easy tool for video-mapping projections and LED mapping. MadMapper is built around the idea of sharing video content between applications. MadMapper also allows to manipulate lighting fixtures (such as LEDs) using MAD_Light, within the same unified environment. There is an ever-growing list of software supporting the Syphon framework, such as: Modul8Quartz ComposerVDMX 5Arkaos GrandVJArkaos MediaMasterOpenFrameworksCinderMaxMsp/JitterUnity3dProcessing (soon)Resolume via FreeframeGLIsadora via Matthew Haber’s ActorCellDNACOGEPlaskAV Mixer Pro The approach that one should assume with MadMapper is that it is extracting elements from a source, generally referred to as “the input.”

Innovative Transparent Bubble Tents How cool are these individual bubble rooms? French designer Pierre-Stéphane Dumas has put a new spin on camping outdoors with his series of tent-like chambers shaped like igloos, under the name Bubbletree. Each bubble suite is fit to be fully furnished with enough space for a bed and resting chairs. They come in two forms—transparent and half-opaque—for different settings, whether you want to lay back and take in your surroundings or simply have a private lodge outdoors. I imagine it would be a rather unusual experience to be able to camp outdoors in this modern-styled mobile hotel with furnishings that are otherwise foreign to the rugged outdoors. Bubbletree website via [Fubiz]