At the end of December 2015, doctors at Cork University Hospital in Ireland published research results on how toddlers deal with touchscreens. The results of the survey were published online in the "Archives of Disease in Childhood" earlier this year.
The publication was based on the questionnaires on the use of touchscreens completed by parents of 1-3 year old, normally developed toddlers. A total of 82 completed questionnaires were evaluated. The doctors came to the following conclusions:
2-YEAR-OLDS ARE ALREADY GOOD AT USING TOUCHSCREENS
71% of infants had access to touchscreen devices (e.g. smartphones or tablet PCs) for a period of 15 min (IQR: 9.375 to 26.25) per day. According to parental information, the average age is 24 months when children learn to swipe (IQR: 19.5-30.5), unlock (IQR: 20.5-31.5) and actively search for touchscreen functions (IQR: 22 to 30.5) with an average of 25 months, toddlers have the ability to identify specific touchscreen functions (IQR: 21-31.25) Overall, 32.8% of toddlers were able to perform all four skills.
Definition IQR: (interquartile range) is the interquartile range, which is a measure of dispersion. It allows conclusions to be drawn about the distribution (dispersion) of data. A small interquartile range means that the data are close to each other or closer to the median. A larger interquartile spacing, on the other hand, means that the data is far apart, i.e. not consistent.
RESULT
The survey showed that toddlers from the age of 2 have the ability to interact with touchscreen devices in a targeted manner. They showed a variety of common capabilities to take advantage of today's touchscreen technology. This proves that the manufacturers of touch applications are already on the right track when it comes to the usability of these applications.
