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
January 18th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Hello Jason, thanks for this resourceful post. Let me know anytime you have content you’d like to publish on Moms With Apps blog. –Lorraine (Editor, Moms With Apps)
January 24th, 2012 at 5:36 am
Thanks Jason, for this great post. Very handy indeed for all us app devs out there! Also: congrats on the chance to speak at Nook – must be great to be part of such a discussion.
Maybe you can also talk about the different ways to ensure quality in children’s apps. We wrote the Kind Kids App Rules as a practical guide on how to design and develop a high quality app for young children.
There’s also the great Childrens App Manifesto by Daniel Donahoo and Andy Russell, which does the same but from a different angle.
In our opinion quality (on a esthetical, technical and an ethical level) is the single most important thing to talk about when developing children’s apps. It’s the only way to stand out in the overly crowded kids app market.
Thanks again and enjoy your talk at Nook!
Diana (Appracadabra / Kind Kids App Rules)