Featured on Apple’s “Staff Favorites” and “What’s Hot in Education.” This educational app for kids offers a brand new musical experience, as they learn the alphabet and expand their vocabulary. The app features two jazzy kittens who introduce the ABCs through musical instruments and interactive games.
• Featured as Apple’s “New and Noteworthy” and “Staff Favorites” for Education
How can music help kids learn the ABC letters in a fun and engaging way?
Our initial goal was to teach kids about letters through music, and we collaborated with an educator who develops music programs for children. See the following post for more information: http://themelodybook.com/benefit-1964/
The challenge was to design content that is relevant to what children are already learning and make it fun and interactive. We ran a competitive analysis and reviewed the leading ABC teaching apps on the iTunes app store. Many of them included too many features and were too complicated for young kids to use on their own. In addition, some had poor graphics and were not engaging enough. As a result, the kids lost interest in the app very quickly. Another goal of ours was to make the app beneficial for special needs kids. For this, we interviewed parents and educators of special needs kids. See the following post for more information: http://themelodybook.com/music-apps-help-special-needs-kid-1625/
The biggest challenge was to design an app that would be intuitive for kids to use on their own. We wanted to make sure pre schoolers and toddlers could easily navigate and explore the app without the help of their parents or teachers. For this reason, the app was designed with large buttons and simple gestures in consideration of children’s evolving fine motor skills. Another challenge was to design a learning experience that was engaging but not too stimulating. Music was a big component in the learning experience we created. For this reason, we kept the background clean, designed large illustrations of the instruments and added simple animations. In addition we designed an open play experience, allowing kids to learn by alphabetical order or pick any letter they wish to explore.
The app was tested with kids 2-4 years. We made some fixes and refined the experience by adding two interactive games and an auto view mode. The automatic mode plays the entire ABC’s in order. This was designed for very young or special needs kids who have issues with navigating the different screens by themselves.
