How Children Search the Internet with Keyword Interfaces: Allison Druin, Elizabeth Foss, Leshell Hatley, Evan Golub, Mona Leigh Guha, Jerry Fails from Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland; and Hilary Hutchison, Google (March 2009)
Searching the web is all about words - thinking of them, typing them, reading them - and then making sense of everything. For children this can be daunting and frustrating.
From the abstract:
"This paper presents the findings of our initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home. Our
research has revealed that although today’s children have been exposed to computers for most of their lives, spelling, typing, query formulation, and deciphering results are all still potential barriers to finding the information they need."
The problems that children deal with in using search tools, are really the same many adults do - but have got used to. Even tools that have been developed to help kids - auto complete and spelling suggestions - go ignored.
By the end of this article you may conclude 1) the search interface we live with really is bad - from query to results; and 2) having children use adult tools is not good.
I'm sorry that the study didn't comment on what does work for children. Just guessing, I would think that the Ask.com interface would be friendlier - answers at the top, work in natural language. I have heard that children like the metasearcher kartoo.com because it is visual. Quintura for kids could be a good choice because it is also visual and groups results.
One of the researchers on this project does work for Google. Perhaps this will lead to a Google for Kids someday.
Posted by Gwen at March 19, 2009 04:58 PM