Introduction to Creating Apps for Kids
I’ve been invited to speak to about creating apps for kids at Nook – a work and event space for artists and illustrators here in Toronto. I’m expecting it to be a pretty free-wheeling discussion about all the practicalities of the process. I’ve hand picked a number of articles and links to get people started and thought I would share them here.
Apple iOS Developer Program: If you want to publish your own apps to the App Store this is where it all starts.
Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines: Read them. And then read them again. Even though they are geared a bit more toward productivity and utility apps for adults, there are lots of insights on how to design effective interfaces for mobile.
Overview of iOS Game Frameworks: A good introduction to the variety of frameworks available to take some of the pain out of creating your own apps.
Do I need to know how to program to do game design? An excellent response to a frequently asked question.
Inventing (Playful) Invention: Great overview of the process of creating digital play experiences for kids from the creators of Toontastic.
User testing at zinc Roe: Notes on how we approach user testing with kids. Some important considerations here to ensure you get useful feedback.
App Licensing: An excellent blog post from Night and Day studios on how they went about entering into licensing deals. Moms with apps is a loosely-organized group of (mostly) indie developers building apps for kids. Their forums are a great place for creators who are just starting out.
There are a lot of good kid app developers out there, here are a few of my favourites:
Toca Boca
Launchpad Toys
Kidoodle Apps
Duck Duck Moose
Night and Day Studios
Crab Hill Press
Nosy Crow
Gareth Lancaster
Matt Hammill










