Welcome to Editor’s Choice, a new series of developer interviews to highlight people who are making significant contributions in the world of family-friendly apps. Today we are talking with Pierre Abel of L’Escapadou (based in France), developer of Montessori Crosswords. What impresses me about Pierre is how he constantly improves the quality of his apps by acting upon feedback from his users. By focusing on educational content, and by incorporating the opinions of educators he meets along the way, it’s no surprise to read the favorable reviews his apps are receiving on iTunes. Let’s learn more…
In your opinion, what characteristics of an app make it most educational?
Of course it is important for kids to learn skills and knowledge, but it is not only school-related subjects that make an app educational. Usability and pleasure are also very important. If the app is too complex to use, kids won’t come back (I’ve seen my daughters not using an app with great educational value because it was too difficult to use). Pleasure is really important because if kids have fun with the app, they will play it again and again and thus learn with fun which is for me the best way to learn. Pleasure can be reached using gorgeous artwork, animation and sounds, but also -especially for the older kids- using game mechanisms that motivate kids to play the app.
What do you hope your portfolio of apps will look like one year from now?
I hope I will have two more great apps with educational value. I’m working full time to develop apps, so you could think that “two more” is not a lot of apps, but great educational apps need a lot of time to be designed and developed because of the testing and iterations involved. A development timeframe of 3 to 6 months is a minimum from my point of view. I also want to continue my “Draw With” app series because my daughters love them. These are my small “just for fun” apps.
Is being an iOS developer a family-friendly profession? What do you like most? What do you like least?
Yes it is, especially because I can involve my family in the design and testing. My daughters are the best beta-testers in the world! My wife has always good feedback and ideas about the apps – especially because we are a homeschooling family and she knows very well what kids needs to learn and how best to do it. In addition, I work from home and it’s great to be with the family all the day (even if I’m in front of the computer all the day…). What I like least? Well it’s perhaps that it’s a lot of work to make a living (in particular, you’ve got a lot of marketing to do).
If you could change one thing about Apple (iTunes or SDK), what would it be?
I would change the App Store categories to allow families to browse and find education apps more efficiently. Hopefully, Moms With Apps’ app is doing this very well now! I would also allow people on iPad and iPhone to see the “New and Noteworthy” apps in the education category. Apple features apps every day in the education category, but it is only visible using iTunes on PC or Mac. But I want to say that the App Store is really a wonderful innovation – parents have access to reasonably priced educational apps and developers can now reach a lot of people easily.
What is your proudest achievement in terms of app development?
Montessori Crosswords. I receive a lot of feedback from parents and teachers who say that this is a great app and I feel very happy about that. I’ve released a lot of updates using this feedback, and thanks to this the app is getting better and better, and more and more people are downloading it. The app has now been downloaded more than 24,000 times and the rating of the last version is almost always 5 stars, so I’m very proud of this.
Who is your favorite (other) app developer, and why? Or, which other app do you like the most, and why?
I have a lot of respect to Duck Duck Moose. In particular I like that that each of their apps is really polished – graphics are superb, usability is great, and when you see a kids using the app you understand that it is a great app. For older kids, I love Dan Russell-Pinson (Stack the States/Countries and Rocket Math) apps because its apps use game mechanisms that push kids to play the game and learn something in the same time.
If you are curious to learn more about the apps from L’Escapadou, here is a summary, all available for iPhone and iPad on the iTunes App Store:
Montessori Crosswords – An interactive game to help kids develop their reading, writing and spelling skills using the proven Montessori method. Includes 300 different word-picture-audio combinations and letters sounds.
French Words for Kids– Learn to Pronounce and Write French Words with Dictée Muette Montessori.
Draw With Stars– Draw with animated spinning and glowing stars which colors are extracted from Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry night” painting. This open-ended app has no “right or wrong”, but is a blank canvas for your imagination. (Mom, “the Editor”, uses it with her 5 year old to trace letters and numbers).
Hearts Extravaganza – Made especially for his daughters, Hearts Extravaganza is based on the open-ended model of Draw With Stars, but targeted to the young and joyous pink heart lovers in all of us.
I love love love Draw with Stars and Hearts Extravaganza for the infants/toddlers with special needs that I work with. It is always a big hit. Thanks for the great work.