Designing for Parents

Parents generally underestimate the maturity of their children, likely as much as children over-estimate their own maturity. That’s only natural, but it's something that designers have to look out for, and be aware of.

Several key target audience surveys demonstrate significant gaps between kids’ perceptions of themselves and their peers, and parent’s perception of the same. For example, parents of middle school students think the kids’ priorities are having fun, looking good, and having friends. The priorities selected by those kids, on the other hand, are family matters, schoolwork and, most importantly, their future. And there are other key elements where this perspective varies, such as sex. 52% of middle school parents think the opposite sex is of interest to their child, while over 60% of middle school kids say the same. This is likely most significant for those parents whose kids are in that 60%. But the fact is that most parents underestimate their child’s interest in the opposite sex, and relationships of both an emotional and physical nature.

This discrepancy highlights one of the key issues in demographic testing, in my opinion. One of the unique gifts of the focus group leaders in my experience has been their ability to solicit opinions by talking about some representational “other” that, of course, includes no one in the room. Which, of course, by inference, it does. For example, 70% of parents think other parent’s are doing a good job, with only about a quarter of parents thinking “other” parents are doing a less than stellar job.

About the same amount of the general population, that is, parents’ and non-parents, think it is “very common” to find good role models among other parents. Kids, however, give parents an understandably higher grade; over 30% of middle school kids think that parents are generally communicative, and only 11% feel that their parents value their jobs more than their time with their kids.

Breaking this down in terms of design is difficult. My interpretation, from experience in design and children’s books market, is that parents want aspirational design for their kids; that is, products which speak to the best in their kids. Kids want things that speak up to them, without speaking over their heads. So one of the key elements is to design up to the kids, but not over where the parents perceive their kids are. That’s the crux and the hardest point to achieve.

Popular media reflects this dichotomy. Parents perceive what their kids watch as beneath them, while purveyors of media seek to deliver what kids want, and let the audience ratings speak for themselves. If it weren’t what people wanted, it likely wouldn’t stay on very long. But that’s not to say it’s necessarily good for them. Generally, 14% of parents of 2-5 year olds see children’s TV as “generally positive,” and 60% of parents of kids 2-17 years old feel that TV has “done more good than harm.” On the other hand, 24% of parents say their children watch inappropriate programming either “sometimes” of “a great deal,” and about the same amount say that their kids watch “too much TV.”

Internet access and its appropriateness is a close second to children’s TV as a parent’s topic. 20% express concern for their children’s exposure. As kids get older, parent’s concerns spread into music and music lyrics, video games, and movies. All these are elements of a child’s unsupervised time, and the result of discretionary income.

In terms of design, I've generally found the product I’ve worked on for kids couldn’t take advantage of this discretionary attention, as that product is typically filtered through the design expectations of parents and school officials who are the buyers. If it doesn't get by the filter, it doesn't get to the target.

A very recent example of this has been on a series of cover concepts designed by my design team and I. They were reviewed by a group of teachers, and the results saw a clear favorite. However, weeks later, we stumbled onto the opportunity to have the same covers reviewed by a group of kids from the target audience. What I discovered from that on second review was that the images that I assumed would have a stronger pull to kids as the target were in fact, better liked by them. And the more “staid” designs that were created specifically to appeal to teachers and administrators were, in fact, preferred by teachers and administrators. But these were not the same covers. Even though the teacehrs were selecting "for" the kids, we again we fall into the same trap of “other”— teachers who say they might like design A better (and so choose A), but feel like the kids would like design B better. But the kids subsequently choose design A. And that’s a mindset it is difficult to disabuse.

In short, designing through a “filter” audience such as teachers or parents can be difficult in a print media, but there’s no other game in town. Very young audiences access the web via parents and teachers, and only older kids with discretionary income can access certain media designed for them, on their own. But in creating magazines, storybooks, textbooks, workbooks, or other materials intended to entertain and inform kids, you must first design to the parents or teachers, and through them, to the intended target.