Studies of Kids and the Web

[Susan Tropeano]

I'm involved in a redesign of library sites in a school district. Our 
final product will have an audience of 1st through 12th grade, 
teachers, and parents.

I am looking for studies on how young children interact with the web. 
I've read a few; Jakob Neilson's report from April 2002 "70 usability 
guidelines for designing websites for children"; American Library 
Association Great Websites for Kids; Jarad Spool; and several 
whitepapers that seem to be mostly reporting on what Neilson wrote. 
There is plenty out there about brand loyalty as it relates to kids and 
the web but this isn't of any use for this project.

I am also familiar with Edward Tufte's works on visual literacy but I 
can't find anything he has to say on kids and the web. I did find on 
his site what websites he thinks are good but they are all adult 
focused. If he has anything written on kids and web I would be 
particularly interested.

I have searched hundreds of library sites since last June including as 
many of the Websites of the Month as I could find (many links were 
broken) but I'm not finding any library web standards that are back up 
with website usability tests done with kids.

Can anyone point me to books, websites, or papers on this topic?

Susan Tropeano
www.clearuse.com
Improving Internet Content, One Website at a Time