Age dependent screen

[TroyWorks]

Is there some general function that takes the input of users age, and
outputs the maximum number of user elements they have to deal with?
e.g.

3 year old might be 3 objects/buttons etc.
6 year old 6
20 .....20


Though I know many toys don't have this limitation, e.g. puzzles, big
legos, little legos.

[Carol Smith]

Hi Troy,

Certainly younger children should not be given a huge amount of choices, but as you mention with legos you have to provide many or a tower cannot be built.

One constraint that will limit the amount of choices is the size of the interface. For example, smaller hands (less than age 8 or so) have less dexterity and need larger targets to hit. On a small display you would not have space for many user elements.

I'm not sure how you could generalize something like this across products. As with everything it would depend on the situation.

Glad to see discussion on the list!  :)
Carol

-------------------
Carol J. Smith
Principal Consultant, Midwest Research, LLC
http://www.mw-research.com

UPA 2009 International Conference: 8-12 June, 2009
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/conference/2009/