Hello friends how are you all? Today we are going to talk about How To Test Educational Apps For Kids? Like other apps, educational apps for kids continue to be popular. With the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, lots of parents are embracing educational apps. Thus, when creating one, ensure it’s great, fun, and interactive – one that kids will enjoy using.
You have to put yourself in the shoes of whoever will interact with the app, for example, parents and kids. Read on to learn how to test educational apps for kids.
Since children grow up first, the different apps would benefit children of different ages. You can categorize the apps into three sections:
- Toddlers apps
- Preschoolers apps
- Primary school kids app
How To Test Educational Apps For Kids
Toddler Apps
Toddler apps are simple and interactive apps targeting children between the age of 1 to 3. Their content focuses on motor and exploration skills. Here, kids can learn several skills. Examples include:
- Colors
- Sound
- Shapes
- Words
- Animals
- Simple math
Pre-Schoolers Apps
Apps for preschoolers target kids between the age of 3-5 years. The major goal of the apps is to give knowledge to kids and assist them in reading and understanding their specialized subjects. It needs to encourage imagination and interaction.
Apps For Primary School Kids
Such apps target kids between 6 to 12 years. The app should focus on basic communication input. They vary depending on the skills, tools, and subjectivity they offer.
Qualities Of A Great Educational App
The following are some of the aspects you should consider before choosing an app for your kid.
Meets The Users Learning Goal
An educational app needs to meet the learning goals of the user. It should incorporate different development skills and teach about emotions. It needs to encourage children and help them in creativity and reasoning.
Offers Room For Feedback
Feedback is an integral part of a child’s developmental process. Children love feedback in whatever tasks they are doing. It shows you are paying attention to them.
Check if the app can deliver the feedback messages through audio. It could be in the form of an animated character on the screen looking directly at the child. The feedback needs to be constructive and meaningful.
The Plotline Is Interesting
Presenting content in an interesting manner encourages kids to use the apps. For instance, it is fulfilling to send children over a treasure hunt and give them rewards after completing a task.
Types Of Testing You Should Perform
Functionality Testing
This is a must stage before releasing your app for use. It helps ensure the product meets the developer’s intended goal and detects any defects. It checks for aspects like screen orientation and user interface.
Functionality testing can be manual or automated. However, automated testing is fast and easier. If you don’t know how to conduct automated tests, you can watch an automation testing tutorial. The testing checks whether the actual functionality of the app matches the expected results by the developer.
It also checks if there is any undocumented or unnecessary functionality. It detects how many errors the apps can handle.
Examples include:
- Non-working buttons
- Any animation, video, and sound elements not working as expected
- Mistakes in parents mode
- Progress by the user isn’t saving. Hence, every time a user logs in, they have to start all over again.
- Drawing or elements created by the user is not saving.
Design
Kids apps need to be of high quality with bright and interactive design. They want to have an excellent time interacting with the app. Thus, the app needs to meet the educational goals of the user depending on their age.
Use bigger fonts to ensure more clarity. Sans serif fonts are easier to read, unlike serif ones. Go for white font color as it’s a great solution for multi-colored backgrounds.
Include animation features. The feature isn’t a must, but it certainly would get the kids’ attention. To make it more fun, ensure the navigation, voice, and button elements are working perfectly.
Performance Testing
Performance testing focuses on different parameters—examples include the mode and graphical elements of the app. Children’s apps contain loads of animated features.
Unfortunately, kids are impatient and won’t wait for a function to load for several minutes. It’s difficult for kids with poor motor skills to operate an app with the same ease as an adult.
Hence, you need to conduct tons of stress tests. The process ensures that the app operates smoothly and doesn’t freeze when subjected to a stress load.
You can do some of the testing, for instance, scrolling through standard prototyping tools. This allows you to test complex issues without writing any tools.
Performance testing also involves checking factors like:
- How battery-friendly the educational app is.
- The level of battery consumption of the app.
Usability Testing
How easy is it for you to use your application? Will a child easily understand the basic functions of the apps?
The popularity of your app would depend on how interesting and convenient it is. After testing, your app must be easy to navigate – even for kids. Check if there are any difficulties in using the app. You need to conduct multiple testing at the initial development of the app.
Compatibility Testing
Your app should focus on diversity. It needs to work on different devices like both old and new smartphones, tablets, and Ipads. Compatibility tests ensure your app can work on various devices effectively.
If your app does not undergo compatibility testing, it’s more likely to encounter errors and malfunctions. Bugs can appear when the display size is different. Texts can be entangled, certain buttons can disappear, and animations can be out of place.
Use different devices for your testing to ensure it works perfectly. The less negative feedback you get, the more kids and parents would use your app.
Security Testing
Security testing focuses on flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities in your app. It ensures the app is safe for use, as you eliminate any threat before using the app.
Without security tests, your app could develop crashes or even be easily hacked. You are likely to lose excellent clients in the process.
Conclusion
Apart from school, educational apps for kids help them in learning. Thus, it is necessary to perform different tests to ensure they function perfectly. But before testing, ensure it meets the different goals of the user by incorporating tasks depending on their age.