As I have worked at The Bivings Group, I have focused on helping design websites and applications for specific audiences – professionals and adult aged individuals.  Many of the clients I have worked with don't need to focus on children, and young web surfers have unique needs.

Recently, I was introduced to the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) website.  While the site has a rather conservative and standard design – in my opinion – I am really intrigued by its book search feature geared towards children.

On this page, children are presented with a search interface that is different from an interface geared towards adults.  Adults are asked about keywords, authors, and titles, but children may not know such information.  Further, children are probably more prone to browse when searching for a book instead of having a specific author or book title in mind.  That is why IDCL provides children with different search options.  For instance, a child can search for a book that has orange on its cover.  Or instead of searching for historical fiction, children can search for “Make Believe Books” or ones that have “Imaginary Creature Characters.”  Further, they can search for books based upon age groups and type – picture or chapter books.

Another interesting feature is that the search options are presented as graphical buttons that children can easily suss out the meaning of.  The search results are also presented by showing the book covers, and children can also flip through the entire books on the computer.

I think that this is an interesting search feature.  Imagine if Google or Yahoo! was set up like this…