With the increasing use of mobile phones and tablets in children’s daily lives, safety education for young children is also changing. For children aged 3 to 6, safety education cannot rely only on verbal reminders or rule explanations. Children at t...
With the increasing use of mobile phones and tablets in children’s daily lives, safety education for young children is also changing. For children aged 3 to 6, safety education cannot rely only on verbal reminders or rule explanations. Children at this stage are still developing their language comprehension and judgment abilities, and they understand safety information more easily through images, sounds, character actions, and simple interaction. Therefore, this study focuses on the design of a safety education app for children aged 3 to 6, using the ASSURE model as the main design framework.
This study first reviews the ASSURE model, children’s safety education, young children’s cognitive characteristics, and educational app design. Based on this review, children’s questionnaires and parent interviews were conducted to identify learning needs and design directions. The results showed that children could understand some clear and simple safety rules, but they still had difficulty judging warning signs, behavior reasons, and more complex situations. Parents also pointed out that current safety education at home often lacks systematic content, interactive methods, and sustained interest from children.
Based on these findings, the app content was organized into four modules: home safety, school safety, traffic safety, and outdoor safety. The learning process follows three steps: “watch, try, and practice.” Children first understand a safety situation through animation, then identify safe and dangerous behaviors through interactive games, and finally review the content through situational practice. In the interface design, text explanations were reduced, while cartoon characters, color cues, voice guidance, icons, and instant feedback were used to support children’s understanding.
In the prototype test, this study selected “stair safety” from the school safety module as the main topic. Part of the prototype was developed using Unity. The test showed that children could understand basic stair safety content through images, animation, icons, voice guidance, and operation feedback. They were also able to participate in judging safe and dangerous behaviors. However, the test also showed that recognizing a picture does not necessarily mean fully understanding the reason behind the behavior. Therefore, future improvements should focus on voice explanations, animation continuity, operation guidance, and feedback design. Overall, this study suggests the initial feasibility of applying the ASSURE model to the design of a safety education app for children aged 3 to 6.