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Age Appropriate Guidelines

These guidelines support anyone creating digital products aimed at young people. They take into account how their cognitive, emotional, social, and physical abilities develop at different rates and are different to adults.

This is a living document that will keep getting updates as we learn more.

1. Design safe experiences that put safeguarding and rights of young people first​

Young people might not grasp the risks or consequences involved with interacting with online products. This is because they might not understand their rights regarding personal data and privacy, so they need more education and safeguards.

Data collection​

  • Only collect data that is absolutely necessary.
  • Be clear and transparent about any data you are collecting.
  • Never collect data in a way that could harm a young person's well-being.
  • Don’t forget the parents and carers, where appropriate provide further resources for them so they understand how we process young peoples information.
  • Only collect personal data where it is needed to run the service.
  • Refer to our data collection principles or the ICO age appropriate design code for further information.

Privacy​

  • Be upfront and clear about privacy information.
  • Integrate ways to educate on privacy during the user experience, to help young people learn and understand how to manage their personal data.
  • Even though under 13s can’t consent to their data being processed, we can help to educate them on the basics, using techniques like illustration or animation. This will give them the knowledge to help make informed decisions regarding their privacy and data when they are older.
  • Design ways for parents & carers to help young people understand privacy information - even if they are over 13. For example include ‘find out more buttons’ and links to resources aimed at parents.

Further reading​

2. Create interactive and engaging experiences that encourage and support play​

Play is essential for development, learning, and self-expression. Research also suggests it’s an effective tool for teaching, and children learn better through play and are able to perform tasks at a higher level. Play often involves experimentation, trial-and-error, and repetition.

  • Don’t be too strict with rule setting - instead encourage imagination and creativity by giving users multiple ways to achieve a result.
  • Provide easy to use pathways that are flexible for users.
  • Allow the ability to personalise or customise experience to encourage creativity. For example the ability to create avatars.
  • Young people require more feedback to help understand how things work. Include fun ways to provide user feedback, such as hover states.
  • Create user delight by including illustrations, animations, and micro-interactions—like fun animated loading states or celebratory animations.
  • Ensure any animations respect the user's motion preferences.
  • Use animation and sound effects sparingly. Children under 12 might enjoy them, but people older than this can find them distracting or annoying.

Further reading​

3. Use ethical gamification techniques to support learning and provide a sense of achievement​

Gamification can help improve knowledge retention, problem-solving, and decision-making skills while creating a sense of fun. It can be used to support a sense of accomplishment, which contributes to a young person's self-esteem and encourages further learning and growth.

But we need to keep in mind that young people are more sensitive to dopamine, so we should not use techniques that might encourage an unhealthy interaction with our products.

  • Be transparent and set clear expectations on how to interact with the product.
  • Include progress trackers to visually show progress towards a goal and encourage task completion.
  • Celebrate task completion with things like project badges.
  • Where appropriate, celebrate success throughout a journey. For young people the journey is just as important as the final outcome.
  • Don’t use daily streaks or other reward techniques that can encourage unhealthy use, and cause loss aversion or stress.
  • Don’t use time reminders.
  • Don’t use negative nudge techniques that force the user down a specific path
  • Don’t use social interactions such as comments and likes, as these can have a negative impact on a young person's wellbeing.
  • Don’t rely on gamification in an experience. It should be used to enhance the experience.

Further reading​

4. Create experiences that support young people's autonomy​

We want young people to be able to use our products without help from grown ups, because they might not have adults available to help them. By having people interact with our experiences from a young age, we will shape their understanding of using and interacting with digital technology.

  • Create experiences that young people can use without help from an adult
  • Provide clear helpful feedback to help users learn from any mistakes
  • Include tool tips and hints to help users understand tasks

5. Design experiences that reduce cognitive load​

A young person’s cognitive abilities are still developing and their working memory capacity is smaller than an adult’s. It’s important to reduce cognitive load and be mindful of how much information users need to carry in order to effectively use a product.

  • Keep content on a page to a minimum to help young people digest the information.
  • Consider splitting large content across multiple screens.
  • Set expectations by showing the journey with UI elements like progress bars.
  • Use progressive disclosure to guide users through a product and gradually reveal more information or features.
  • Build on young peoples existing knowledge and mental models by using familiar real life metaphors.

Further reading​

6. Support young people's motor function needs with tailored interactions​

Motor skills develop at different speeds, which might influence device preference. Knowing the devices our users prefer can help us to determine which interactive gestures are most beneficial for them.

For example, users under 8 might not be as familiar with using a keyboard and mouse, but might be comfortable using a trackpad or touchscreen device.

  • Use simple keyboard interactions such as using the arrow keys and mouse clicking for less experienced users with limited typing capabilities.
  • Use interactions such as dragging and scrolling with mouse & trackpad, for more experienced users with strong typing capabilities. This group may also be able to handle interactions that involve coordination between keyboard and mouse.
  • Make sure designs are compatible with touch screens to support users who are more familiar with this mode of interaction.

Further reading​

7. Consider age appropriate styles to create engaging, accessible, and enjoyable experiences for young users​

Young people have different preferences, styles, likes, and dislikes from adults, which can impact their enjoyment and engagement when interacting with digital products. Their preferences also tend to change depending on their age, so it’s important to consider the age range of your audience to find a style that suits their needs.

  • Young people under 12 may not have developed abstract thinking skills and may struggle with understanding hypothetical concepts. Use shapes, colours, and textures that resemble physical objects to help things feel more familiar and easier to use. For example, a folder that looks like a physical paper folder.
  • From age 11, young people tend to begin developing stronger abstract thinking skills and can understand a more minimalist UI style.
  • Use a bold colour palette to help with engagement such as using it to highlight key information. Make sure to adhere to the accessibility guidelines.
  • Don’t use too many colours in order to avoid overwhelming and distracting users.
  • Be consistent with the visual language by using similar patterns and visual language to make repeated interactions have less cognitive load on young people.

Further reading​

8. Guide users through experiences with clear navigation and buttons​

Using buttons and navigation elements consistently makes it easier for people to find what they are looking for. They’ll develop a mental model and learn how to interact with our products.

  • Use simple and clear navigation to reduce cognitive load, making it easier for children to focus on the content and tasks without getting overwhelmed. Include back buttons as younger users tend to be less familiar with browser back buttons.
  • Use hover states to help young users understand which elements are clickable.
  • Use icons to help set context for button actions to help aid users who are less confident readers.
  • Consider the visual design aesthetic of UI elements to make them more appealing to young people. Explore rounding corners, pill shapes, colour, localised icons.

Further reading​

9. Support young people's reading development with appropriate text and fonts​

Choosing a typeface and how you apply it is crucial to helping young people understand content. It’s a common misconception that, because it’s for children, we should use typefaces that are fun and decorative. This can be counterproductive as these styles tend to be harder to read. It's important to consider that reading abilities vary among young people, and prioritise clear and accessible fonts.

  • Where possible use single storied characters to mimic how children learn to read and write.
  • Use sans serif fonts and where possible use single storied characters to resemble how children learn to read and write.
  • Don’t use condensed fonts, wider typefaces are better for legibility and are more similar to the handwriting style taught in schools.
  • Don’t use all uppercase as it is harder to read than sentence case.
  • Consider the font weight, too bold or too thin can impact readability.
  • Break content into short chunks to reduce cognitive load and aid users in engaging with the information.
  • Use headings to set expectations about what the content includes.

Further reading​

10. Use icons and imagery to give context to text​

Icons and imagery can often help to provide more clarity when accompanied by text labels. For young people this means it can help them to process concepts without having to read text, making it more inclusive for different reading levels.

  • Ensure icons are relevant to the action or the context.
  • Avoid abstract icons and imagery for younger audiences.
  • Choose imagery that is relevant to the age range to help young people relate to it.
  • Explore adding images to instructions to help give context.
  • Consider target markets and locations when choosing and creating imagery.

Further reading​

11. Support different reading abilities by writing in an age appropriate language​

Young people's vocabulary and reading comprehension is still developing. When writing content it's important to take into consideration that these will develop at varying rates for different people.

  • Use a resource like Hemingway to check your content’s reading age.
  • For ages 9 and above: Write for a reading age of 9.
  • Ages 6 to 8: Use limited text, and aim for their specific reading age.
  • Ages 5 and under: Keep text to a minimum.
  • Find the terminology our audience uses and mimic that.
  • Write using clear language. Use simple, short sentences and common words.
  • Be clear and direct. Active, not passive.

Further reading​

12. Create content and experiences that are aligned to learners lived experiences​

A young person's experiences will vary depending on a number of factors such as age and location.

  • Consider all our core markets when building a product, unless it’s targeting a specific audience.
  • Allow users to engage with something they care about, like an interest or passion of theirs.