Here’s some good news for media watchers. Quality appears to be increasing. We’re not talking about violence, gender or ethnic stereotypes or Internet safety. We’re talking about old fashioned quality, as measured with the same instrument over the past 17 years. The instrument, designed to quantify five factors (ease of use, educational value, entertainment value, design features and overall value) has been used on 7,302 interactive products that cover approximately 18 platforms, spanning 1993 to 2010.
It shows that mean ratings of children’s interactive media are steadily increasing, which is good news for parents, teachers and children. Of course the big question is, “why the increase in quality?”
The increase is proportional to the increase in the implementation of touch and motion based interfaces. More specifically, the Wii, the Nintendo DS and DSi, and the iPod Touch and iPhone have resulted in more mono-and more recently multi-touch based experiences, which is resulting in the steady gain in ease of use. Because child control/ease of use is a factor that is embedded in the other five measures, ratings have steadily increased.
It’s almost as if designers are improving by default, much the way that boats rise if the water level increases. Developers may not have skills in interactive design, but tools like Flash, when combined with touch, can create an experience that scores higher.
This underlying “you touch and you get” design increases quantitative ease of use measures, which also increases both the educational and entertainment ratings.
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