Welcome to Pixalate’s CTV & Mobile App Manual Reviews According to COPPA, a series containing the detailed factors the Trust & Safety Advisory Board educators used to assess an app’s child-directedness.
The educators manually review thousands of mobile apps available in the Google Play & Apple App Stores as well as connected TV (CTV) apps from the Roku Channel Store and Amazon Fire TV App Store using the COPPA Rule factors shown below & make those results available to the public at ratings.pixalate.com.
This post takes a look at a popular Mobile App from the Google Play Store. Our reviewer discusses how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into the reviewer's determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The teacher will indicate the factors they relied upon in their assessment using the 10 factors shown below that reflect the 10 child-directed factors in the COPPA Rule.
Girl Games: Unicorn Cooking provides a virtual cooking experience for children, immersing them in different kitchen environments to create a variety of unicorn themed treats. Possible recipes include unicorn cakes, slushies, cotton candy, donuts, and more.
App users go through the process of measuring out ingredients, mixing things together, baking or freezing, and decorating. After completing the recipe the treat can be ‘eaten.” Real recipes are given with ingredient amounts and even calorie counts for each of the items, however there are no instructions for actually assembling or baking the recipes.
The visual content in this app quite literally screams ‘unicorns and rainbows.” The logo that is displayed on the loading screen and in the top corner while browsing recipes is a pink unicorn with a purple mane in front of a rainbow with donuts. Everything from the backgrounds to the kitchen appliances and countertops, to the ingredients are sparkly pinks and purples. The home screen background is a swirl of shimmery pinks, purples, and blues, and the backgrounds while cooking feature kitchen in similar hues.
The decorations for the baked goods and frozen treats feature sprinkles, decorative straws or cake toppers, whipped cream, and ice in the same unicorn-themed shades. With numerous options to choose from, children are sure to be able to create their unique creation despite the similar colors and themes of the options.
Animated hands on the screen point and gesture so that even the youngest users can understand how to interact with the app. Children need to be able to click and drag ingredients around the kitchen to successfully trigger related animations and continue to the next step. Animations include things like cracking eggs into a bowl, mixing ingredients, and baking in an oven. These animations allow the children to feel like they are in a kitchen baking but without the risks of burning food or themselves.
While there is some text on the screen when choosing a recipe, most of it does not need to be read to be able to fully understand or interact with the app. The essential information can be discovered via pictures, animations, and oral narration. The narrator reads the titles of the recipes and other crucial information slowly and simply for younger children to understand.
Childlike music that is upbeat and playful plays softly in the background. The music changes as the user interacts with different recipes or screens within the app. As the user interacts with different ingredients and kitchen equipment corresponding sounds are played along with the animations, such as water flowing when pouring things from a pitcher or cracking noises when cracking eggs.
As the user completes the steps of the recipe, shimmering stars and starbursts are displayed on the screen, and tinkling bell reward sounds are played. The narrator affirms the actions with “awesome” or “well done,” encouraging the children to continue to interact with the app.
After finishing making and decorating the food the user gets a chance to “eat” it. The more the user taps on the screen, the more food disappears as it is consumed. Coins and gems appear as the food disappears and large rainbows shoot up from the background if clicked fast enough.
Video advertisements play in transitions between recipes or adding ingredients within a recipe. Banner ads are also displayed at the bottom of the screen while creating recipes and in the bottom right corner while browsing the recipes. The advertisements are primarily for other child-directed games but occasionally feature dating and other adult geared apps.
The intended audience is reflected in the title of this app, “Girl Games.” This implies that the developers expect the primary audience of this app to be young girls, likely due to the unicorn content. The app description does not mention girls or children specifically but does include many keywords that appeal to children, such as unicorn, sprinkles, candy, glitter, and rainbows.
The reviews also reflect an audience of mostly children. There are many reviews from parents indicating their children use the app, as well as reviews that appear to be written by children.
Privacy
According to the privacy policy, which was last updated on October 25, 2017, the developer recognizes that their apps are geared toward children. The policy states that “Kids Food Games Inc operates mobile apps which are oriented for children under the age of thirteen.” They indicate that they “do not knowingly collect any personal information from Kids other than as expressly specified in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 below.” These subsequent sections detail that they only collect nonpersonal information and passive advertising identifiers that are not personally identifiable.
Pixalate’s Trust and Safety Advisory Board was created to bring in individuals with experience using child-directed apps in the classroom to review and assess which apps are child-directed. This manual review process serves to quality check Pixalate’s automated review process. See our full methodology for more information.
Disclaimer
This blog post published by Pixalate is available for informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. By viewing this blog post, the reader understands and agrees that there is no attorney-client relationship between the reader and the blog publisher. The blog should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in the applicable jurisdiction(s), and readers are urged to consult their own legal counsel on any specific legal questions concerning any specific situation. The content of this blog post reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and this blog post is not intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings pertaining to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps.
