5. When offering a choice, provide no more than three options.

Another early insight taught us that children, when presented with options, struggle to retain any more than three. Research from other Voice + AI projects also highlighted this as a limitation for adults following along with a recipe in a voice experience.

More than three options are difficult for users to remember. This can mean users are busy thinking about what they've forgotten when they should be making a decision. Decision-making involves weighing up the available options, and that's very difficult to do if you can't remember all of them.

Bad practice: Providing too many options

Smart speaker: "We've got five games. Go Jetters, Hey Duggee, Waffle the Wonder Dog, Move It and Justin. Which game would you like?"

In this example, five games are presented to the user at once. This many options can feel overwhelming. Few people would be able to remember all five of the options they heard. Consequently, the question at the end can make the user feel at fault for forgetting this information.

Best practice: Providing three or fewer options

Smart speaker: "We've got five games. How about 'Go Jetters' or 'Waffle the Wonder Dog'. Choose one or ask for more."

However, in this example, the five games are split into smaller chunks of two games at a time. Users are able to process the information more easily, weighing up two options and deciding if they like what they've heard or if they want to hear more.

6. Strive to present options that are balanced in their appeal to children.

When first testing our navigation, we noticed that more children were choosing to play a game than listen to a story. Through further investigation, we learned that listen was associated with being told to listen at school. This wasn't very appealing, especially presented against the option to play a game.

Providing choices that are equally weighted in their appeal is an ongoing challenge. But by getting this right we can be sure that children have the best chance of navigating through and discovering all of our content.

Bad practice: Providing options with unbalanced appeal

Smart speaker: "Would you like to play a game or listen to a story?"

'Listen' is off-putting for children, whilst 'play' has an almost insurmountable appeal. The options aren't fairly weighted.

Best practice: Providing options with similar appeal

Smart speaker: "Would you like a game or a story?"

By removing the verbs 'play' and 'listen', we offer two far more balanced options.