Following the launch on tablet, Sky Kids is in the process of extending games to mobile. However, fragmented experiences across devices creates usability challenges. The tablet app’s complex navigation makes it difficult for younger users to explore content, and the mobile app lacks key features for games integration.
We needed to unify and simplify the experience for all age groups. The goal is to create intuitive, accessible navigation, and boost engagement ahead of the expansion, ensuring a seamless and fun experience for kids.
To unify the experience across mobile and tablet, we first focused on simplifying navigation on tablet. The tablet has 2 forms of navigation:
Swipe - similar to a carousel kids swipe through the pages, then scroll vertically to discover content. This interaction was designed for smaller hands with additional arrow buttons for accessibility.
Search - to take kids directly to content
Games on tablet has added rails to navigate radially as well as vertically which jars with the swipe across functionality.
People can’t navigate away once they have expanded the rails, but they also don’t know to expand the rails up in the first place
When new games launch, they’re featured on the home page, driving a huge spike in discoverability. Testing revealed that sticking to familiar interaction models met usability heuristics and helped kids of all ages easily find games. Usability testing confirmed that positioning games within the existing model ensured comfortable navigation for everyone.
This secondary navigation model was used to aid discovery of hidden games.
Colour is a key tool for guiding users and is proven to enhance content discoverability. Younger children, in particular, depend heavily on colour and visual cues to navigate the app.
However, the current use of colour within the app, especially across different brand partners, lacks consistent logic. While colours are indeed useful, they aren’t being applied in a way that maximises clarity. By streamlining the colour strategy, we can significantly improve content discoverability, ensuring users—especially the youngest—can navigate more intuitively.
I created a new colour system that clearly separated different content areas, making it fun and easy to navigate. This helped children of all ages find their way around, especially when doing more complicated things like downloading or switching between games and shows.
With games and shows being data-heavy, customers needed a way to watch and play on the go without draining their data.
We planned to design downloads for mobile initially, allowed us to gather valuable user feedback quickly and address any usability or performance issues before expanding it to tablets, which often lack mobile data connectivity.
Learnings from colour research were added to the download feature, using distinct colours to signal download progress.
This was key, as downloads can take time, and the colour indicators helped keep users informed at a glance from anywhere in the app, reducing frustration and enhancing the overall experience. Starting with mobile allowed us to refine the system before scaling to larger screens and more complex tablet interactions.
Our designs were validated through extensive testing with key personas, with real-world tasks that reflected children's behaviours and needs. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with younger children able to navigate the app independently and discover previously missed content.
The redesigned Sky Kids app launched in February 2019, delivering a unified experience across mobile and tablet. We saw a sharp increase in game engagement, particularly for featured content on the home screen. While some challenges with hidden games on tablet remained, this insight paved the way for further development.
