PBS Producer Summit: Mobile & Touch Screen Update

+ Current PBS Focus
+ Brainstorm and Q&A

Before iPod there was Microsoft surface, the SMART table, and Intel's classroom PC, Palm etc.

Types
- Optical
- Resistive
- Capacitive
- Infrared
- Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW)

Multi-touch
- means multiple touch points at same time.
allows complex manipulation of objects.

Optical (most multi-touch)- SMART technology has a number of cameras built into it. The table has one camera with over 40 points of touch.
- Can use other objects such as tennis balls and sticks and use the board.

ResistiveIntel Classroom PC and many Netbook touch PCs will use this.
Does require pressure on screen
Zooming images could blur

CapacitiveIphone, iPod touch and iPad
It is based on electricity present in our bodies!

InfraredNot sure who is using it
Grid of light sensors, and can sometimes be activated before user actually touches screen (interrupting beams of light)

Acoustic WaveUnable to scale to large devices
Not sure who is using this right now!
Could be really cool.

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Touch Screen Advantages Intuitive (for our age group keep it literal -- eg. some kids paint on an app, then check their finger to see if there is paint on it!)
Responsive
Usable
Flexible - can manipulate objects

Touch Screen Challenges'Touch ' on a device is not the same as real touching
metaphors should mirror kids' reality
no rollover event
Coloring app alpha - How do you know when you want to zoom or color
Fingertip takes up 1/6 to 1/8 of width / height of screen on handhelds
and many more...


Some PBS kid testing findings - iPhone App Alpha prototype from 2009- when you don't get what you want when you touch, kids tend to press even harder.
- coloring in - kids tended to try to rub rather than press to color fill.

The Power of MobileAbility to serve families on the go - the pass back effect
Child sense of ownership and control
New device capabilities
 

PBS has pbskids.org/mobile+ 3 apps reached top 20 in kids gaming category
+ 2 apps reached #1 in educational games
+ From august to March had about 160000 sales across 5 paid apps
    - not yet a huge revenue platform, but interesting!
    - apps marketing overall is probably in the billions - approx 1.6b est.
+ Amount of visits to these apps had 10 - 15 visits in the first month.
+ Built in loads of google analytics tracking into app background -
    - 60% of apps are on phones so 'pass back' phenomenon is real.

Have released SuperWhy for iPad App. Research results:

+ Two of apps went into a formal educational impact study.
+ 90 participants 3-7 + parents recruited from title 1 schools, so many kids had never played with device before.
+ Parents got to sit with researchers, and a separate iPhone app for parents to collect data

Findings - Martha Speaks Dog PartyExpressive vocab increased 20%
Five year-olds had 27% improvement
25% parents said the app prompted them to introduce the concepts in every day use with their children.

Findings - Super Why AppFour year-olds improved their letter sound fluency by 25%
Rhyming word identification up by 36%
35% of parents said the app prompted them to introduce the concepts in everyday use with their children.

WHAT PBS SUGGEST- needs to be very engaging
- brand attributes
    - focus on real world contexts and skills
    - same content we put in our TV shows and websites
- Learning outcomes
- Accessibility and usability for our audience
- Age-appropriate pacing and intensity
- Mr Rogers app has about 23 minutes per play.

Iterative Development Approach- Next phase is to improve the apps already developed
- Scale up, try to get them on more and more platforms.
- Researched based content, not suggestive based.
- iPad - does game play differ on bigger screen to the traditional smaller iphone / ipod screens?

CSFs for Marketing Your App1. Brand which includes game name and icon
2. Audience size, demo and level of interest for app genre
3. Value perception as expressed by appealing screenshots, (16% choose to download apps because of screenshots) demo video, product description,
4. Popularity in rankings etc
5. Peer opinions expressed as user ratings, reviews, blogs etc.
6. House ads in other related apps linking direct to iTunes page.
7. Apple promotion in iTunes on the device or in stories
8. Online traffic, directed to a centralized landing web page
9. Frequent upgrades - users expect this, helps promote in display, think about what you can upgrade10. Press and social networking
11. Strong differentiation from competing apps in a category.
12. Optimize your search terms to work with Apple SEO

The Network EffectWhen Curious George got promoted on apple, the other apps would lift in downloads.
PBS do loads of marketing on facebook, friendfeed, twitter, YouTube, cross-promote with other PBS Kids apps

PBS FREE VS PAID APPS
Games are all pay apps, primary reason is as a 'support public tv' function - aka revenue.
Average is $2.99 for a premium PBS app.
Any free apps promote tune in, promote brand etc.

PBS FUTURE PLANS- looking to build a PBS localization module that PBS partners can do
- looking to create sharable code that people can use to share by email, doesn't sound like sharable game code though.
- Looking to get into google android
- Working with SMART technologies
- PBS Became an ADOBE OPEN SCREEN partner. Flash games for authoring a flash game and publishing in many environments. They have a year in this partnership.


INTERACTIVE SMART BOARDS
http://pbskids.org/whiteboard/

20% of classrooms have smartboards
Kids interactive team lead by Scott Cummings went through PBS games to see how they could work .
SMART has a team of SMART exemplary educators to observe the way kids are using PBS games.

Next Steps- native app development -- Cyberchase lucky star game
- more research, observation
- Development on the SMART table
- PBS want more opportunities with partners to develop in this area.

SMARTDifferent authoring environment
Different SDK
No top to bottom orientation.