Hopster is an app for 2-6 year olds whereby they can watch videos, play games and listen to music. The mobile redesign needed to:
Notes on the existing UI.
Click to expand
The first challenge: introduce an additional level of navigation. This way shows would no longer dominate, with every show available straight from the home screen, but content still had to be easy for children to find.
I outlined two key properties for the new design:
1. Simple, large element - the screen would always one main tappable element
2. A horizontal carousel, rather than vertical scrolling - more intuitive for children
The new structure
The first testing round provided useful insight into designing for a wide age range (2-6).
Older kids (5-6) preferred the old app, with everything laid out for them to see. Younger ones (2-3) preferred the new, with its big, easy tap areas. Parents also preferred the new, as they felt their kids interacted in a more considered, less random way.
A challenge we discovered early was how to get users to scroll. Research had suggested horizontal scrolling would be more intuitive than vertical, but it was not completely solved.
We made improvements over several iterations and rounds of testing:
The result: kids exploring and engaging with the world from the moment they open the app.
