This piece originally appeared on Technology Sunday, September 26th 2010, under the name: “Net Profits for Kids“

Although we often hear of the digital divide affecting older generations, we are seldom told of how children are to be included on the internet. This is partly due to children’s almost immediate adoption of and familiarization with technology. Over half of Maltese households have at least one computer¹, and our internet penetration rate stands at 59.1%². Most primary school children use computers regularly and have a good knowledge of the web. However, we must not forget that children have different needs to adults, even when it comes to the internet.

There are literally billions of websites, some of high, some dubious quality. Which of these are good for my children? And what makes a website appropriate for young ones?

Child friendly content

Any website must be populated by content of various types. In fact, we normally classify websites according to their content, and this is truest in the case of children’s websites.

Website content for children is very different to content for adults. It is known that even adults do not like to read large bodies of text online. With children, textual content should be suitable to young readers. Jargon used must reflect this, as should the tone used. Ideally, one should combine words and images to create self explanatory graphics . This is demonstrated capably on www.sesamestreet.org, the main menu from which you can see below.

Colour and Spacing

Children’s websites are purposefully very colourful. Having bright, friendly colours is very important, as the site will look friendly to the child, as well as grab attention. Spacing should also be wide and common, so that elements are separate from each other and do not appear to be a single whole thing. It is also very important to focus the most interactive section of the site in the centre, as this is as the area all users focus on, especially kids. Cbeebies, the BBC children’s site is a gem of a site, and uses all these principles, and others, such as large buttons on video controls.

User friendliness

Children can only concentrate for short periods of time. This is why short, easy, tasks and activities are ideal.

The key to a great usability on a children’s website is simplicity. Any parent knows that kids are huge spacebar fans. The mouse tends to confuse youngsters because it’s a more liberal tool, however children do catch on to clicking here and there very quickly. The keyboard is used excellently on many children’s sites. Again, in the case of sesamestreet.org, most games are keyboard driven, and use the space bar, which is large and easy to distinguish.

Use of sound and music

When it comes to children, anything music related is sure to grab attention. You will notice most kids’ websites are laden with music (which annoyingly starts as soon as the page is loaded). However, as annoying as it is, one understands that when used with colour, music creates a very friendly atmosphere.

Websites like bussongs.com use music and lyrics to help children interactively learn words in a fun and engaging way. bussongs.com allows children to listen to songs and learn lyrics to them.

If your kid is a little too old to sing nursery rhymes, you can visit kids.yahoo.com/music, which is a kid-friendly music site, replete with music videos and jokes.

Interactivity

You will notice that websites for children are extremely interactive. You will see this even in the smallest details, such as sounds made when the mouse cursor hovers over active items on the page. Disney’s excellent website tv.disney.go.com/playhouse goes one step further. The menu items are read out in a cheerful voice when the mouse hovers user them.

Playhouse games are extremely popular with children and there are loads on online game sites online. Among the best are are tv.disney.go.com/playhouse, which has excellent games based on many Disney characters, such as Oso, shown here, whose job it is to rescue sunken toys from the ocean.

The web can make learning fun by integrating interactivity. Learninggamesforkids.com, as the name suggests, has a huge collection of games intended for learning. The subjects vary from science, to geography and animals and many more. Another excellent website full of games for kids from 6 to 10 is uptoten.com.

Safety and Security

Of great concern to parents, educators, law enforcement and governments world wide is that children are safe and secure when using technology. The internet can be an overwhelming place, and in any situation, children are more vulnerable than adults, so it is our duty to make sure they understand the risks and know how to be safe online.

Most websites do not allow under 13s to create profiles and interact with the rest of the user base, and if they do, portions of functionality are severely curtailed. For example, in the case of Facebook, an adult can not ‘befriend’ an under 13 year old if they are not able to provide information that proves they know the child, such as real name or email address.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects children from being unscrupulously marketed to. However, this Act, which was enacted in the US, does not give blanket coverage, and does not apply to Europe.

Danger may be found anywhere, be it chatting, webcams, social networks or online games, so if the child is too young, there are various filtering resources, such as the free to use Naomi.

Naomi stops objectionable material from being accessed on your computer by killing the Web browser. No warning, no explanation, just boom: program closed. It works using heuristic and semantic data filtering, which basically means it chooses websites according to their type, and how they ‘advertise’ themselves. Even search results aren’t even revealed because Naomi detects explicit terms and shuts down the browser.

However, the safest, and most fun for children to explore the internet is with a parent. Not only will the child be guarded from anything they shouldn’t be exposed to, but they’ll be spending some quality time with their parents, who may well find that this becomes the most relaxing time of day for them too!

1 http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_293_mt.pdf

2 http://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm