What is Messenger Kids?
A free video calling and messaging app designed for kids to connect with close friends and family. Kids can only connect with parent-approved contacts, which creates a safer user experience but a more complicated design experience.
With multiple audiences to consider, we knew we needed to create clear portals of information to keep everyone on the same page. With this in mind we started to think through these family dynamics and how exactly we should balance control between parents and children.
One of the first problems I tackled was to create a way for parents to manage their child’s account together. We knew parents wanted this feature, but not every family has the same structure, so we needed to find a delicate solution. We completed a number of user-research sessions and tested a variety of design directions to understand what rules should be in place for this experience overall. We had to figure out how to respect different family situations within our backend limitations, if parents should have the same admin rights, and how new and existing users would find new features.
Parents rule and kids drool
From here I started to shift to a broader view of a parent’s experience in Messenger Kids. The app already had a “Parent Portal” where parents could manage their child’s account and settings, but the original version wasn’t keeping up with the new features we releasing weekly. So I took what I learned from testing, hedged my bets, and started the complete overhaul.
In the end, the bets paid out. Running through many different explorations, we decided that it would be best to create three distinct buckets of information. We settled on a structure that gave parents an easy-to-understand information hierarchy, even as the product began to scale.
Good things come to those who try
I think that having a clear structure empowers the parents to take action on the things that matter most to them. After launching the new parent portal, I was happy to see a rise in parent activity, retention, and actions taken.
Working with Messenger Kids has been an exciting opportunity to improve an ever-changing digital landscape and to help technology grow with kids. Ensuring we could build a safe communication app, while still providing an experience that both kids and parents enjoy, has been a challenging but exciting experience that we are grateful to have.