Grown-ups dream to be babies and we should treat them so.

My life is pretty much fullfilled. I have a happy family and a job I love. Within this sea of joy, sometimes the two worlds collide, for the best.

Every night, before bed time, we sit and read a story to my 8 months old baby. Like every other child, he has his favorite books and even pages. We read an audio book, with one hidden touch that triggers a sound, poorly hidden by a black circle. And while every night we press the same button producing the same sound, Eliott, sitting on my laps, try every night to hit something that is not related at all. Nor by the book "CTA", nor by the drawn representation of the sound (i.e. baby crying, dog barking, whatever...). No, that little boy does only care about one thing. Hitting like hell that weird colored unrelated thing that comes near the main topic : The redhaired cat behind the child, the yellow sun within the sky behind that grey dog.

And if I launch myself into a crazy colored book, well my partner & I are going to have a hell of a night. So many things to press, so many attention getters. Overwhelmed by things Eliott would love to do, he just sits back and gets excited. And I can read within his lovely eyes "Dad be kind and fix your UI, you're not getting anything from me there.". Unable to speak and sitting on my laps, my child just advised me on my Product Manager job : Cleanse your website !

If adults can interact more easily and we can count on them to solve very complex things, such as the right button to press on the laundry machine, when they reach their chair, open their laptop and click on their browser icon, the best consideration is to divide their age by their age, and treat them like a 1 year old. They are impatient, they unplugged the brain and want you to feed them small meals.

I gave Eliott a pen, and we decided to gather the best rules he wrote for you to keep his bedtime story a good time.

• Focus your page on the critical elements : If you want me to understand that I have to press the dog's nose to hear him bark, please do not draw more attractive things on the edges of my page. Let me focus on that one thing, that cool dog ! When you're on an E-Commerce website, if your whole website looks like the LGBT movement rainbow flag, do not expect me, Eliott, to click on the black call-to-action "Purchase", I'm too busy dealing with the other elements like that oversized white and blue bird drawing (dad whispers it's called "Twitter").
• Be consistent between your pages : I love my website like I love my bedtime stories. Following a path, a story and with the same drawers. Please do not change the color of my main character's hair, just as do not change your chart color everytime I load a new page of your website.
• Do not ask me to read : I'm one year old, do you think I understand this combination of weird symbols you put ? I just want to press on a thing to hear a funny thing ! So please, be kind, do not drown your website of written explanation, you probably do not need them.
• Escort me : When dad takes the book in his hands, my brain knows exactly what will happen to me in the next 20 minutes. The cat will hide in my bedroom to piss mom off and I will hear a story as soon as the first page is turned, I will be allowed 5/7 pages where each one moves the story to the next step. And when the book will be closed I will have to sleep. This is the same thing on your e-commerce website. I want to know where I'm going, what are the steps of my journey and what will happen next. Please do not surprise me anyhow.

At this point, Eliott's mom realized I gave him a pen and told me it was very dangerous. I wanted to keep learning what he had to tell, she wanted me to stop and did not want me to bother him with my work. We came to an agreement and stopped.

I may not be as smart as Eliott, but I may consider listening to him when it comes down to my next webdesign redesign.

Long live Eliott.