The beginning of user experience: child users' perceptions, attitudes and expectations regarding mobile applications and interface design

Today, with the development of technology and the increasing involvement of mobile devices and digital technologies in our lives, many mobile applications appear on different platforms, and the product-user relationship is investigated in many aspects, especially under the title of user experience. One of the important user groups of these mobile applications is children. Although user experience studies focus on child users, comprehensive studies on how digital products are perceived by children and what kind of values and meanings they associate with the visual-sensory features of the interface design are limited. In this study, mobile applications from various categories designed for child users were examined in terms of concepts such as perceived value and aesthetics at the first impression stage, and with observational studies, it was investigated what kind of meanings and values child users associate with interface design holistically or on the basis of components. It was observed that the child participants sharply noticed the differences between age groups, the old-new perception changed rapidly, and the interface elements and the first impression of the application were also effective in the participants' inferences about gender roles. Keywords: Mobile Applications, Perceived Value, Child Users, User Experience, First Impression