Maily: Your Kids' First Email | Hacker News Reader

Maily: Your Kids' First Email

maily.com

82 pointsjentulman51 comments

I've been thinking about how you might go about designing an email account for non-readers.

The target audience, I guess, would be kids in the 2-5 range, but I guess more generally, it would be anybody who can understand a language but not read or write it.

Obviously, for kids, you would want more of a "pretend" email account than a real email account, but it would be cool if the basic functionality were there, so that a kid could send a cute little "Hi Mommy" or "Hi Daddy" message to a parent who's away at work or traveling.

I guess the best interface for it would be a touch-screen tablet, which is a little more intuitive than using a mouse to click.

Because the intended users wouldn't be able to read, they would have to be heavily guided by voice prompts.

Maybe it would go something like this:

(email app loads up)

Voiceover: If you would like to _send_ an email to someone, tap the picture of the disco-dancing pony. If you would like to view the emails you have _received_, tap the picture of the hula-hooping pterodactyl.

(kid taps the disco-dancing pony)

Voiceover: Here are pictures of some people you can email. Tap the picture of the person you want to email.

(kid taps the picture of his dad)

Voiceover: Now, it's time to record a video message for Dad. When the giant roller-skating ice cream cone appears on the screen, you can begin recording your message. When you're finished, tap the screen.

(kid records a short "Hi Dad!" video message)

Voiceover: If you want to replay the message you recorded, tap the picture of the elephant in the hot tub. If you want to re-record your video message, tap the picture of the bacon strip doing jumping jacks. If you're happy with your recording and want to email it to Dad, tap the picture of the unicycling weiner dog.

(kid taps the weiner dog)

Voiceover: Great! Your video message has been emailed to Dad. Hey! You just received a new email from Grandma. If you're ready to view it, tap the picture of the monkey modeling ladies' hosiery.

(kid taps the monkey)

Voiceover: Here is the text of Grandma's message. If you'd like me to read the words for you, tap the picture of the transcendentalist turtle.

Having watched the video my first thoughts were why can't (for eg) the child's grandma reply using her email client. Why does grandma have to login to the website?

I agree, I was about to grab this for my kid, but getting the dozen or so friends and relatives to create accounts isn't worth it. Very nice looking, but should have the option of just using an email whitelist to send. Then include a one time use reply link in each email so the recipient can reply without having an account.

I presume one reason (as suggested in the video) is that Maily wants to promote "kid-friendly" email replies. I imagine kids (particularly the very young) would find it more fun to receive a visual reply than a standard email reply.

An account is still a barrier. They could create a "click to read and respond" link that contains an access token.

Great idea and name. My only criticism is for it to be really smart I'd love to be able to reply without having to login to maily. That would really become like a safe version of email. Another would be for the child to be able to request to add a contact (like a friend) where the parent is sent a notification with the email and a note.

The other thought would be an iPhone app. The iPad was definitely a smart place to start with but I know a lot of kids (maybe slightly older) have iPod Touches with parental settings on, these are replacing the Nintendo DS and goes everywhere with them.

Site is having difficulties indeed :) Demo video can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/40147990 Download here: http://goo.gl/umkig Thanks!

Pro tip: make sure you have enough processing power and bandwidth available before you post things on HN :)

  503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

I just found it and posted it, it's not mine, they may not even be aware they've been HN'd. I've tweeted and mailed a link to them, perhaps they'll come play.

You said it's yours in the submission title.

well, not quite.

It's a "My First Email App" for kids. Not sure if the quotes were ever used, or if they were lost in the HN title process (I presume the former).

The "a" is there in the title, but it still reads confusingly without appropriate visual cues.

Sorry, as mgkimsal said I should have added some punctuation, "Maily, a 'my first email' app for kids" would have been better.

Any stats on how big the typical HN traffic spike is?

Depends on a lot of things, but here's a particularly good day of sustained traffic in the top 10. https://img.skitch.com/20121001-earf66yyjrpj7b11tjek89i9ii.j...

The source of that spike was 300+ concurrent uniques high turnover for a good part of the day.

I submitted a few "interesting" questions from StackOverflow last year (by interesting I mean they had interesting subjects, but weren't link-baity; my poor memory has forgotten what they were though!). IIRC, both of them got about 200-250 votes (on HN) and about 20-30 thousand visits. How do I know? I submitted using the share link StackOverflow gives you (it's something like stackoverflow.com/question/1000/2000, which means that user 2000 (me) has linked to question 1000), and about the time they reached 100-120 votes, SO awarded me a badge along the lines of "you shared a link that 10,000 unique IPs have visited".

So, based on my very limited experience: unique visits are about 100 times the number of votes on HN.

#1 on HN for almost a full day: ~21,000 visits and at peak 815 people with the site open at once.

Huh. Less than I thought, somehow.

Problem fixed!

Free copyediting: You've got a "grocer's apostrophe" on your more info page: photo's --> photos

http://www.maily.com/Learn-More http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Superfluous_apostrop...

Yeah, that drives me nuts when I see it.

A small suggestion for the website: always show the scrollbar because the transition is pretty annoying otherwise.

Interesting concept, questions:

Who will kids be emailing? can they email anyone? can anyone email them?

How would you get signups for something like this?

I couldn't find that too, so I watched the video. Very well made and answer all those questions.

Site was not loading before and now I'm getting a 503.

Website problem fixed! Sorry for the trouble.

This is a "drawing app", not an "email app".

Kids are more likely to draw an email than to type one. It sends an email when they hit send, and it receives emails from people the kids can view. Why exactly does this not qualify as an email app?

Looks like this is being run from Belgium. Do COPPA laws affect US children that may try to use this service?

This looks like a good idea. I could certainly see myself using this. It isn't clear from the presentation, but it would be a real annoyance if it only works with ios, as this puts a limit on who my son can mail with this app.

Only ios for the moment, but non-iPad users can use the web dashboard to communicate with kids they are close with. Android development foreseen in the future!

I believe the maily folks should do some market research and learn more about their target users. Computer savvy kids will, I suspect, find this product too simplistic and condescending.

I love this idea. I have some pre-teens that I would love to allow to send more email while having control over who they can reach.

Any plans for other than iPad?

Glad you like Maily! We're planning to develop an android version in the coming months.

Another +1 for non-iPad application. Kids love sharing information, but even young reading kids can't type well.

I'd see as much value in HTML5 in-browser app as in Android tablet app.

Yes, a browser version, even without the drawing stuff, would be great. A walled garden that I can let my kids use while they get used to that big old outside world. Not trying to over-protect, but expose gently.

Great job, felt like a really polished pitch. Loved the video. I wonder if the would kids ever get weary of seeing the same images in their parents' replies?

Scrolling isn't working for me! Chrome Version 23.0.1271.10 dev.

But I love the idea. :)

Working now! Love the idea even more, great work on the video.

Cute idea. Checked out the video linked in the comments, looks like a fun app for kids.

Hook it up to Google apps and this would be great.

Anyone want to give a summary for lazy readers?

Really well done, great job and best of luck.

A good idea. They should be charging for it.

Nice domain name! Did you buy it long ago?

We bought the domain name about a year ago for an acceptable price :)

Nice done! To UX/UI designers who are excited about Maily, contact me (wanghq@twitter) pls. You could make the next brilliant app too. (sorry for the spam)

I think kids spend way too much time on phones, tablets and computers. I want my kids playing outside, not staring at a screen.

This is Tom. One day Tom realizes instead of siblings he's been having gadgets... Great work guys.

i like it :D

Finally something that really 'disrupts' email.

no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com