The world of wearable technology is expanding rapidly, and Android WearOS has emerged as a versatile platform for developers to create innovative apps. While many WearOS apps cater to adults, there’s a growing opportunity to design apps specifically for children. Building for kids, however, comes with unique challenges and responsibilities. From ensuring safety and privacy to creating engaging and age-appropriate content, developers must approach this niche with care and creativity. In this blog post, we’ll explore key considerations for designing Android WearOS apps that are both fun and functional for young users.
New principles and guidelines for development
Google has released guidelines for developing apps for WearOS for children. In this post we will see some of them.
Design principle: Active and fun
Build engaging healthy experiences for children by including activity-based features.
A great example of this is the Odd Squad Time Unit app from PBS KIDS that encourages children to get up and be physically active. By using the on-device sensors and power-efficient platform APIs, the app is able to provide a fun experience all day and still maintain battery life of the watch from wakeup to bed time.
Content principle: Thoughtfully crafted
Consider adjusting your content to make it not only appropriate, but also consumable and intuitive for younger kids (including those as young as 6). This includes both audio and visual app components.
Tinkercast’s Two Whats?! And a Wow! app uses age-appropriate vocabulary and fun characters to aid in their teaching. It’s a great example of how a developer should account for reading comprehension.
Minimize impact on device battery
Minimize events that affect battery life over the course of one session. Kids use watches that provide important safety features for their parents or guardians, which depend on the device having enough battery life. Below are best practices for reducing battery impact.
- ✅ DO design for offline use cases so that kids can play without incurring network-related battery costs
- ✅ DO minimize tasks that require an internet or GPS connection
- ✅ DO use power efficient APIs for all day activity tracking as well as tracking exercises
- 🚫 DO NOT use direct sensor tracking as this will significantly reduce the battery life
- 🚫 DO NOT include long-running animations