At present there are no widely established conventions in children’s interactive stories and games for using movements to control the characters and interact with a story. Therefore, the designer needs to pay particular attention when planning, writing and implementing instructions for a child. In this master’s thesis the focus is on researching and designing a user interface instructions, including help and tutorial elements, for facilitating the child’s playing experience.

Kinetic Kid means a child moving a lot. I showcase how children can control a storybook application called the Sharp-Eyed Little Red Riding Hood with their own body movements. The child can become the character of the story and help solving tasks using a gesture ‘to look forward’. The animated and interactive story is 15-minute-long played using the Kinect motion sensor.

The literature analysis consists of two parts: children’s abilities and motion games. The first part discusses Child-Computer Interaction, developmental stages and intrinsic properties of a child. The second part focusing on motion games includes a short analysis of user interface conventions in Microsoft Kinect games. In addition it explores the influence of motion games on the future development of motion-based applications.

I also conducted interviews with kindergarten teachers to gather their professional opinions on how to instruct children to move and follow guidelines. I used their answers and observations to improve the user interface and develop the game further.