UX Design for Teenagers (Ages 13-17)

Technology is so integrated with the lives of teenagers that creating useful and usable websites and mobile apps for them is more critical than ever. Despite being born into the digital age, teenagers often make mistakes and give up quickly as a result of their insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and low level of patience. Still, teenagers are goal-oriented and expect websites and apps to be easy to use. To improve the usability of an interface for teens, we must consider the factors that affect their performance and design accordingly.

This 312-page report offers 124 design guidelines based on our usability research. Discussions and 230 screenshots supplement our findings, explaining why specific designs worked well or worked poorly, and how to improve interfaces to match teens’ abilities and preferences.

Topics Covered

• Misconceptions about teenagers
• Comparing teen usability to other age groups
• Differences between younger and older teenagers
• Motivations for using websites and apps
• Mobile phone usage, and design considerations
• Age-targeted content
• Social media
• Checklist of design recommendations to make interfaces easier for teenagers to use
  • Account creation
  • Fostering trust
  • How teens share information
  • Mobile gaming
  • Gamification
  • Onboarding
  • Advertising
  • Ecommerce
  • Product customization
  • Searching for information and doing research
  • Navigation and links
  • Writing for the web
  • Visual design
  • Image and video content
  • Interaction design
• Websites and apps that teens like, and why
• Gender differences
• Advice from teens
• Balancing what teens want and what they need
• Detailed methodology section that shows how you can conduct your own usability studies with teenagers, including where to test and how to get them to vocalize their thoughts

Types of Sites and Apps Tested

We tested both specialized sites that explicitly target teenagers and mainstream sites and mobile apps for which teens are part of the larger target audience.

• School and education resources (e.g., BBC Bitesize, Khan Academy, Quizlet, Google Classroom, Photomath, Robert Morris University)
• Health, medical, and pharmaceutical (e.g., TeensHealth, Healthline)
• News (e.g., BBC, Buzzfeed, Daily Mail, CNET, ESPN)
• Entertainment and games (e.g., Stack AR, Asphalt 9, Marvel Contest of Champions, Spotify, Pinterest)
• Ecommerce (e.g., Currys PC World, Adidas, H&M, ASOS, Amazon)
• Non-profit (e.g., Rotary International, Charity: Water)
• Government (e.g., Gov.UK, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation)
• Tourism/Travel (e.g., TripAdvisor, Visit London)
• Corporate sites (e.g., Graze, McCormick Company)
• Social media (e.g., Snapchat, Bitmoji, Instagram)
• Sites with user-generated content (e.g., Twitch, YouTube, eHow, Totaljobs)

What's New in the 3rd Edition?

The third edition contains many new recommendations and updated examples. This third round of research included two lab-based usability studies conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom.

This edition covers several new topics and expands on older topics, including:

• Findings and recommendations for tablet and mobile applications
• Mobile gaming
• Social media
• Homework apps
• Advertising

Research Method

The information in this report is based on three rounds of usability research, conducted over 13 years, with teenagers 13–17 years old. We used four different research methods:

• One-on-one in person usability testing
• Field studies, during which we observed teens in their homes and at school as they used the internet
• Interviews and focus group, for gaining further insight into young peoples’ experiences and attitudes
• Expert design reviews

Across all three studies, 100 teenagers tested the usability of 210 websites and 30 apps. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.