Children click differently

Developing digital products for children means designing for users whose reading ability, motor skills, attention span, experience, and understanding of digital rules change fundamentally within a few years. There's a world of difference in digital product usage between a preschooler, an eight-year-old primary school child, and a twelve-year-old.

There is no single child user

A four-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a twelve-year-old are three very different digital users. Their abilities and expectations of digital products evolve rapidly. What is intuitive and appealing to one age group can be incomprehensible or even boring to another.

Design must therefore consider the respective developmental stage to be convincing not only functionally but also emotionally. Products conceived generally for 'children' risk failing to truly reach any specific age group. Overly childish design is quickly rejected by older children, while complex navigation overwhelms younger ones.

Children don't always want to reach the goal. They also want to know what happens when they press here.

While adult UX often prioritises efficiency – quickly finding a task, shortening the path, minimising friction – for children's products, discovery itself can be part of the benefit. Children are significantly more exploratory: they try out options and investigate interfaces more thoroughly where adults would follow an expected main path.

Exploration must not lead to disorientation.

Therefore, child-friendly UX requires clear return paths, consistent orientation, and few, understandable main levels. Surprises should reward rather than punish, and visible reactions to actions give the child a sense of control and understanding. The explicit requirement for navigation and operation of the MausApp is therefore: an intuitively understandable interface that specifically considers young users and rewards exploratively discovered touch areas with a positive action.

Who says children have to leave a trail?

Data protection in digital products for children is not just a legal obligation but an integral part of good UX. Children should be able to use and explore a digital product as widely as possible without unnecessarily creating accounts, providing names, building profiles, or leaving personal data. Tracking or location data sharing should be deactivated by default.

International principles such as the 'Age Appropriate Design Code' set clear expectations: high privacy by default, only collecting necessary data, geolocation off by default, and no manipulative nudges to disclose additional data. Good children's UX doesn't just ask, 'Can a child operate this?', but also, 'What do we ask of them in return?'

Die Maus is a world, not a menu

The MausApp is deliberately designed as a spatially experienceable Die Maus world. Children can control Die Maus themselves and discover the world on land, underground, and underwater. This is not mere navigation with decorative figures; the form of interaction is part of the brand and an experience in itself.

This approach has proven successful, with millions of installations and an extensive media library. Almost half of the usage time is dedicated to exploration and play, not just video content. The website also features animated introductory worlds that combine stories, games, recipes, crafts, and special themes. Children arrive for specific content but stay because there's always something new to discover. For children's offerings, navigation itself can become part of the content experience.

Child-friendly doesn't mean childish

Children are sensitive to content that appears designed for a younger age group. Large buttons, bright colours, or cartoon characters alone do not create a good user experience for children. Child-friendly design means respecting their abilities and developmental stage, providing guidance, and enabling independence, without infantilising content or design. While primarily aimed at children, Die Maus's offerings also explicitly appeal to older fans and adults. Die Maus communicates almost wordlessly, making it universally understandable across all age groups. This demonstrates that good design respects children's intelligence and curiosity, rather than underestimating it.

Good children's UX creates a safe space for play

A good digital world for children should be reliable enough to provide guidance, open enough for exploration, understandable enough for independent use, surprising enough to maintain curiosity, and safe enough for experimentation without unwanted consequences.

flowchart TB
    A[Verlässlich genug] --> B{Orientierung geben}
    C[Offen genug] --> D{Entdecken können}
    E[Verständlich genug] --> F{Selbstständig nutzen}
    G[Überraschend genug] --> H{Neugierig bleiben}
    I[Sicher genug] --> J{Ausprobieren ohne Risiko}

Child-friendly UX doesn't dictate every step. It creates a space where children feel confident to discover things for themselves.