Videos showing young children using the iPad have been making the rounds, cited as proof of the intuitive nature of the product. They’ve been referenced in articles with titles like “Apple iPad easy enough for a child to use”.

Similar videos made the rounds for kids and the iPhone, kids and the iPod, all the ways back to kids and the original Mac.

If you want to show that something is easy to use, the thinking goes, record a child exploring it and post the results on YouTube.

It’s entirely backwards.

Children Are Uninhibited Explorers

Kids engage in active, uninhibited exploration to discover the functionality of a system, often through trial and error. They do this without self-doubt, prejudice or assumption.

Deviations from behaviours and interfaces that they already know don’t make them doubt their intelligence, or make them feel angry that their existing knowledge is obsolete.

While parents love to show off their children doing clever things, bragging about the superior essence of their DNA or parenting, the reality is that most children are shockingly clever.

I have three young children. They’ve had computers since each was a toddler. They have often seen me using computers. They watch each other using computers.

My youngest has, since well before his second birthday, gone to the office, turned on his computer, and logged into his account.

He launches Firefox and decides which site amongst his bookmarks that he wants to visit. There he explores the site-specific UI, picks the activity he wants to play, and masters its nuances.

There is little consistency among the sites or individual games, and they frequently change it up and add and remove content, yet that never discourages him or throws him off, but instead offers more opportunity for exploration. It plays a part in the enjoyment.

When he gets bored he goes to the next game or site.

If I’m at the office and I see him appear online through Skype, I can make a call to him and he’ll answer. He often exclaims “DADDY!”, then abruptly (how rude!) hanging up to get back to his game.

He figured out most of this on his own. There was no computer training course or bootcamp learning series.

The same technology aptitude certainly holds true for my other two. My daughter was beta testing a page when she was two. She had no problem quickly discovering how the elements interacted.

My children play videos from the network-attached storage. They take pictures of themselves with superimposed hats using the webcam. They scan their drawings for digital enhancements.

A year back I discovered my middle son, then a preschooler, on YouTube doing searches for Star Wars videos. I was sitting behind him on another PC and got curious when he asked how to spell Darth Vader.

Now that I’m onto my third Android phone – having gone through the HTC Dream, to the HTC Magic+, now onto the Nexus One, all over the course of less than six months – the Dream has been relegated as a portable media and internet access device for them, and again they figured out how to do almost everything it is capable of doing on their own, even on stodgy old Android 1.5.

Taking pictures, playing videos, navigating the market and installing and running applications (no pay account is associated, so thankfully they aren’t running up charges).

And it isn’t even an Apple product.

Children are brilliant. Of course I think my kids are especially awesome (as every parent does about their own sprogs), but most kids are capable of these feats if given the freedom to explore with the confidence that there are few negative ramifications of their actions.

Adults Are Dumb In Comparison

Adults, in contrast, usually approach anything new with self-doubt, biases, and prejudices. They have preconceived notions of how something should behave, and deviations from that leads them to grow angry and irritated that the subject is, essentially, making them feel stupid, while making their previously acquired knowledge obsolete.

If Facebook moves a button, there is mass outrage.

Linux desktops are generally considered deficient unless they closely mirror the behaviour of the Windows desktop that people are accustomed to. Individualizing, even where it is demonstrably superior, is almost always a negative return activity.

Just copy what people are accustomed to. Most adults actively avoid learning anything new, so the less “new” the better, generally.

Humanity suffered a decade of jokes about programming the VCR.

We’re seeing the same behaviour now in the smartphone ecosystem where Apple is held as the benchmark, and the way things should be done. While many bemoan everyone “copying” Apple, they need to keep in mind this people-are-dumb effect.

Of course this leads to a chicken-egg debate: how does Apple get away with doing things “Different”? How do they manage to get away with, and be heralded for, creating entirely new and different experiences? How do they manage to “make” markets?

Apple Treats Users like Children

Many users approach Apple devices as if they are children, just as the products are delivered as if to Children.

Watch Steve Jobs unveiling the iPad and seriously question whether that sort of presentation would have been tolerable from, say, Steve Ballmer or Eric Schmidt.

Listen as he soothingly delivers the goods like he’s a children’s author giving a reading from “Why Goombas Go Bananas”.

While that sounds like a negative statement about Apple, it is actually incredibly positive.

Given that there is a widespread expectation that there is a reward that will come from acclimation – they have been told that Steve Jobs has the Midas touch and Apple designers are the world’s best – people often approach Apple products with a wonderful child-like open-mindedness, willing to accept differences. There is knowledge that it will be a rewarding experience.

The same thing happened with the Nintendo Wii: Given positive press and a friendly impression of the company, many had an unexpectedly child-like response to it, and were willing to give it a chance.

This is seldom the case. Whether it’s a simple change of a web page, the use of the Ribbon bar in Office, a switch to Firefox – people have a strong gravity to things that they already know, and a powerful aversion to change.

It takes a lot of hype to overcome that friction.

Whether Apple products are really as intuitive and brilliant as claimed is debateable, but the belief that they are is enough to get them over that hump, yielding the same benefits.

On Acting like a Child and Letting a Child (or Adult) Act like a Child

One important note about children (or adults acting like a child) and exploration: To work there has to be an environment where there are few negatives to simple actions.

In the case above my kids use PCs running Windows 7 and limited user accounts, coupled with reasonable (but not overbearing) supervision, so there is little to no damage they could cause with a mouse and a keyboard.

Worst case I’d just wipe and reinstall.

They can’t accidentally order things on a credit card. They can’t install root kits. They can’t delete system files.

Having that freedom to try things risk free is critical to exploration.

It’s just important for adults who are learning a system, and perhaps a part of how we got to where we are was an ecosystem where simple exploration could be a destructive, damaging experience. Where an accidental keystroke launches a complete changed interface, for instance, with no obvious way to get back.

It destroys the user’s sense of adventure, probably forever.