Designing for children, like any user group, has unique challenges and considerations. It is important to understand how young children's motor skills and cognitive development progress. Much research has been done in these areas which designers can take advantage of when designing products for children.

Designers must carefully consider the age, physical and cognitive abilities, as well as other stakeholders in order to design successfully.

The information below introduces you, as a student of design, to some of the relevant factors you may need to consider when designing for children.

IMPORTANT: Although there are accepted timelines and milestones for development, it is important to note that each child is different and the pace of development may be faster or slower.

Motor Skills 

Motor skills refer to the controlled movement of muscles and bones. In general, there are three categories of motor skills.

Gross Motor Skills: These are movements that use large groups of muscles, in the arms and legs. Jumping, skipping, and hopping are examples of gross motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills: These are movements that are precise and involve the small muscles in the arms and fingers. Handwriting, painting, grabbing objects with thumb and finger are examples of fine motor skills.

Motor Coordination: These are movements that combine gross and fine motor skills to accomplish a task. This could include dribbling a basketball, holding a piece of paper with one and and cutting it with scissors with the other hand, or swinging a tennis racket with both hands.

Typically, gross motor skills develop first followed by fine motor skills. 

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Impact for designers

Designers need to consider the age of their target user group and be aware that certain tasks or movements may not be possible for children to perform. This is important when designing objects that need to be held, moved, or manipulated.

Cognitive Development

The psychologist Jean Piaget stated that children's cognitive ability to reason, infer, and make connections is still developing. This development  happens in different stages:

• (Ages 2-7) The Preoperational Stage: children  can think in terms of symbols, but they are not able to effectively take other people’s perspectives. Language skills are still developing.

• (Ages 7-11) The Concrete Operational Stage: children learn how to use logic to make inferences and reason about the world.

Throughout childhood, children are still developing their other cognitive capacities:

• Theory of mind: understand the intention and emotions of others

• Cognitive flexibility: processing conflicting information and perspectives

• Executive function: planning and monitoring their own behaviour

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Impact for designers

Designers need to consider the cognitive ability of their target user group. This is especially important when developing interactive games or user interfaces. 

Stakeholders

Designing for children is unique in that while they might be the end user for the product, they are not the purchaser of the product - this is usually an adult such as a parent, caregiver, or teacher. Successful designs, then, must not only meet the needs of the child, but also those of the adult who purchase the product.

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Impact for Designers

Designers should carefully research the relationship between the needs of the child and the parent. They need to identify aspects of the design that are important to the parent or caregiver, in addition to aspects that are meaningful and relevant to the child.

Rate of growth

Children grow at a much faster rate than adults. The rate of change between a 3 year old and 5 year old is greater than that of a 16 to 18 year old. Thus, designers should carefully consider the age group and design accordingly.

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Impact for Designers

 Due to the high rate of growth in the younger years, designers may want to consider how dimensions of a product can be adjusted as the child grows; or how the product might take on a new use as the child outgrows it. 

Safety Considerations

Due to the factors outlined above, designers need to consider product safety from a different perspective when designing for children.

Some of these considerations might include:

• Eliminate choking hazards: Young children are more likely to put objects in their mouths. Designs should not have pieces or parts that can become separated and swallowed.

• Non-toxic materials: As young children are more likely to put objects in their mouths more frequently, designers should ensure that materials are non-toxic

• Eliminate pinch points: Small fingers and toes can easily get into gaps or spaces in a design. Designers should be careful that any gaps cannot harm a finger or body part.

Products for children can be highly regulated and have to meet certain national certifications in order to be sold. 

• US Toy Safety Standards,  The Toy Association

• EU Toy Safety Standards,  The European Commission

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Impact for Designers

Designers of toys, clothing, or other products for children need to be aware of the regulations and standards. In most cases, the product must meet these standards in order to be sold in the marketplace. These standards may form part of the Design Specifications.

Resources

• How to design for children: Methods and considerations for product attachment: Gunnar Eidsvik Tvedt, Department of Product Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology: This paper reviews strategies that designers and manufacturers use in the design of children's products. Many references to UCD strategies in this article.

• Product Design For Kids: A UX Guide To The Child’s Mind: Dorottya Molnár, UXStudio: 

How to create products and toys for kids: Book review of "Design for Children". A good introduction to the book and some of the ideas and issues around designing for children.

Kids’ Clothes: Articles of Interest #1: A podcast that discusses the evolution of children's clothes as well as some of the legal and regulatory considerations that designers must consider.