Memory Game: Designing for Young Children
Project type: Course project with UX research focus
Year: 2025
Duration: 4 weeks
Tools: JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, User Testing, Figma
My Role:
Designer and Developer responsible for:
- User research and testing with children ages 3-8
- Interaction design optimized for young users
- Accessibility considerations (contrast, visual hierarchy)
- Front-end development and implementation
- Iterative refinement based on user feedback
Project Background
This memory game was created as part of a JavaScript course, but I approached it as a UX design challenge: how do you create an engaging, accessible game experience for children with varying cognitive abilities and motor skills?
The Problem
Children ages 3-8 have vastly different abilities, attention spans, and motor control. A one-size-fits-all approach would either bore older children or frustrate younger ones. Additionally, young children using touchscreens face unique interaction challenges that adults don’t experience.
Goals
- Create an engaging game experience for a wide age range (3-8 years)
- Design intuitive interactions for users with limited fine motor control
- Make difficulty adaptable to different skill levels
Result
A mobile-first, responsive memory game designed to effectively engage children in the target age group.
Research: Identify target Audience
I conducted informal testing sessions with children ages 3-8 to understand their needs and limitations:
Key Findings:
- Children under 5 struggled with time pressure and needed more time to process
- Visual preferences leaned toward bright, friendly imagery (animals, simple shapes)
- Touch accuracy varied significantly by age. Younger children often mis-tapped
- Frustration led to quick disengagement while success encouraged continued play
Design Decisions
1. Three Difficulty Levels
Based on testing feedback, I implemented three levels of difficulty to accommodate different ages and abilities. This ensures younger children can succeed while older children stay engaged.
- Easy: More time, fewer cards
- Medium: Moderate challenge
- Hard: Fast-paced for older children
2. High Contrast & Child-Friendly Visuals
- Color palette: Purple and yellow provide strong contrast for developing vision
- Card imagery: Realistic, recognizable photos of children’s favourite animals that they could easily identify and remember
- Clear visual feedback: Cards flip with obvious animation to confirm interaction
3. Accessible Typography & Layout
- Large, readable fonts
- Generous spacing between cards to reduce mis-taps
- Clear visual hierarchy
The actual game
Testing & Iteration
Through multiple testing rounds with children I discovered:
What worked:
- Bright colors kept attention
- Three difficulty levels allowed all ages to play successfully
- intentionally choosing children’s favourite animals kept them curious and engaged
What needs improvement:
- Touch sensitivity requires refinement – younger children (under 5) sometimes struggled with tap registration
- Time limit adjustments, because younger children were not able to complete the game within the time limit because they got interested in exploring the games design instead of playing the game
Outcome
The game successfully engages children across the target age range, with each difficulty level being accessible to its intended users. Testing revealed that even 3-year-olds could complete the easy level, while 8-year-olds found the hard level appropriately challenging.
Reflection and learnings
This project reinforced that user testing is essential, even for seemingly simple interactions. What works for adults doesn’t necessarily work for children – touch targets that seem large enough often aren’t, and cognitive load that seems minimal can be overwhelming for developing minds.
If I were to continue this project, I would:
- Refine touch event handling to improve responsiveness for young children
- Conduct more structured usability testing with a larger sample size
- Explore adaptive difficulty that adjusts based on player performance.