WiggleTime.com is the virtual home of the Australian kids’ band and TV show, The Wiggles. Kids can play games and watch video clips from the show. There is no interaction with other people in the game and no outside advertising. WiggleTime.com is geared towards preschool kids (3-5 or so).
Pros
- Familiar Games and Activities
- Consistent navigation controls
- Cute and engaging graphics
Cons
- Slow to load
- Navigation not preschool friendly
- Annoying Music
Registration Process
Registering with WiggleTime.com is relatively simple. Create a parent account, and then wait for an authorization email to activate the account. From there, you can add up to 4 children with customized skin color, face shape, hat/hair and shirt color. It would be more fun to have a few more customization options, but there are enough for kids to show at least some of their personality and style.
At this point, you’ll also decide on a subscription level. You can choose a free account with limited games and videos (2 videos/month) or a paid account starting at $5.95/month. There are discounts for multi-month subscriptions, and a special UNICEF subscription that comes with an extra activity and includes a UNICEF donation. Paid accounts get unlimited games and up to 10 videos a month. They also get access to special offers and information from The Wiggles. The best feature by far is a report that tells how long each user has been on the site, what games they have played (including the skills the game requires) and how many videos they have watched.
Games and Activities
Users start out buckled into a snazzy “Big Red Car” that lets them drive around town. They can drive to visit The Wiggles, Captain Feathersword, Dorothy the Dinosaur and Henry the Octopus. Wags the Dog appears throughout, often replacing the child’s avatar in a building or game. Each location has access to at least one game, and usually a video collection. It isn’t clear from the outset that videos are limited and it’s easy to click on a video player in-game without realizing it.
The available games will be generally familiar to the preschool set and included a hide-and-seek variation and a memory game where you choose instruments in the sequence they were played. New games can be unlocked over time. The games have some basic educational value, but none of the games I played was truly an educational game.
One major source of disappointment is the lack of activities in any given setting. Each setting seems to have about 3 games total, and possible a video player. There are plenty of fun objects in the buildings, but you can’t interact with any of them. Since preschoolers are just learning basic computer skills, it would be more engaging if they could click around to see what might happen. Will the phone ring? Will the flower vase tip over? What’s inside of that cabinet? This would appeal to the natural curiosity for the 3-5 age set and make the overall game play more interesting.
Navigation
The navigation around WiggleTime.com is relatively consistent, which is important for this age group, as most of them can’t read fluently. Most activities use a green button to start the activity and a red button to stop. Children are generally familiar with this concept and it makes it easier for them to navigate the site without adult intervention (an adult would ideally be present, but preschoolers like to figure things out on their own).
The site is a little confusing at first, and you can access most areas in three different ways: you can drive there, find it on the map, or click on one of the character pictures to choose. Once you explain this to your child, they should have no problem getting around and will start to remember where their favorite games are located.
Overall Site Design
My biggest complaint about WiggleTime.com is that it is painfully slow to load. One two separate occasions and different times of day (once when the bulk of the Australian fans should have been in bed), I noted an initial load time of two minutes or more. If it ended there, it might not be so bad, but each time you enter a new location or open a new game, you’ll find yourself staring at the “colourful blobs” that represent loading new information. It got to a point where my son would say, “Uh-oh,” each time the loading screen would appear. From a quick look at the Parent’s Forum, I’d say that this is a problem across the board with the site. Unless you have the most patient preschooler in the world, it’s going to be frustrating.
I have another complaint about the design of WiggleTime.com. If you start a game and miss the instructions, you can click on Dorothy the Dinosaur for help. Unfortunately, she pops up with a text-heavy set of directions that are well beyond the reading level of most preschoolers out there. I couldn’t find a way to repeat the directions verbally for my son, who was usually busy talking when they were given the first time around. In fact, there are a number of places where some verbal cues would help. You get a verbal cue when you mouse over the pictures of the characters, which is silly because you can see who they are. But you get no cues when you mouse over the “play game,” “end game” and other similar buttons. This is all very adult-oriented behavior and not what I’d expect for a site geared towards kids.
The Bottom Line
WiggleTime.com has some work to do before I would recommend it to others. Most importantly, the slow loading time has to go. But it would be great to see a little more interactivity and child-friendly prompts as well if they’re going to target the preschool crowd. Parents in the U.S. should also note that WigglTime.com uses British English in its written content, which could be confusing for early readers.
