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Design your Action
Throughout your design process, keep the following key considerations in mind for targeting a family audience:
Understand your audience:
When building a family-friendly Action, it’s important to recognize that you are actually catering to different audiences within the family. For example, parents care about educational value, quality, and safety, while kids will want an Action to be fun, straightforward, and challenging.
Test with mixed audiences:
Children often have different thought processes and interaction patterns than adults, so it’s crucial to get feedback from them. Parents may be the approvers of the Action's use, so you cannot afford to overlook their thoughts and opinions. Be sure to include users of all ages early and often in the process, from concept all the way to launch.
Consider kids as part of your design:
An Action that is simple and easy to use helps even your youngest users learn quickly and become self-sufficient. Keep instructions and actions clear and easy to understand, and include content, sounds, and voices that appeal to users of all ages and hold their attention.
Build your Action
To start building your Action, review our codelabs and other guides on this site. You can also review our Templates guides to build an interactive Action without writing any code.
[null,null,["Last updated 2024-09-18 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eActions targeting families must adhere to the Actions for Families program requirements, COPPA, GDPR, and other relevant regulations to ensure safety and appropriateness.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhen designing for families, consider the diverse needs and preferences of both parents (educational value, quality, safety) and children (fun, simplicity, challenge), and involve them in testing.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eActions intended for families should prioritize clear instructions, engaging content, and age-appropriate language to enhance usability and appeal to all users.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eBefore submission to the Actions for Families program, developers must enable the "For Families" setting and may need to verify their brand and link a Teacher Approved app unless a partnership with Google exists.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["The key actions involve designing, building, and submitting an \"Action\" for families. Design considerations include understanding different family member needs and testing with mixed audiences. Building involves reviewing codelabs and templates, ensuring compliance with relevant privacy regulations like COPPA and GDPR. Submission requires selecting the \"For Families\" setting in the Actions on Google Console, joining the program, and potentially connecting a website and Teacher Approved app, if not in a partnership with Google. Updated policy documents, as of January 11, 2021, should be reviewed.\n"],null,["# Build an Action for Families\n\n| **Note:** We updated our [Action for Families Addendum](/assistant/console/policies/actions-for-families-addendum) and [Program Requirements](/assistant/console/policies/general-policies#actions_for_families) on January 11, 2021. Please review these documents to ensure that your Action is compliant with the requirements for Actions for Families.\n\nDesign your Action\n------------------\n\nThroughout your design process, keep the following key considerations in mind for targeting a family audience:\n\n- **Understand your audience:**\n\n When building a family-friendly Action, it's important to recognize that you are actually catering to different audiences within the family. For example, parents care about educational value, quality, and safety, while kids will want an Action to be fun, straightforward, and challenging.\n- **Test with mixed audiences:**\n\n Children often have different thought processes and interaction patterns than adults, so it's crucial to get feedback from them. Parents may be the approvers of the Action's use, so you cannot afford to overlook their thoughts and opinions. Be sure to include users of all ages early and often in the process, from concept all the way to launch.\n- **Consider kids as part of your design:**\n\n An Action that is simple and easy to use helps even your youngest users learn quickly and become self-sufficient. Keep instructions and actions clear and easy to understand, and include content, sounds, and voices that appeal to users of all ages and hold their attention.\n\nBuild your Action\n-----------------\n\nTo start building your Action, review our [codelabs](/assistant/conversational/codelabs) and other guides on this site. You can also review our [Templates guides](/assistant/templates) to build an interactive Action without writing any code.\n\nBefore you submit your Actions project for the Actions for Families program, make sure your Actions project meets our [Program Requirements](/assistant/console/policies/general-policies#actions_for_families) and is compliant with the [Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule), the [EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)](https://gdpr.eu/), and any other applicable laws or regulations. These policies are in place to ensure your Action is appropriate for the whole family.\n| **Note:** If your Action targets children as its primary audience or as one of its audiences, it must participate in the Actions for Families program.\n\nSubmit your Action\n------------------\n\nOnce you've built your family-friendly Actions project, submit it to the Actions for Families program.\n| **Warning:** Make sure your Action complies with the [Actions for Families Program Requirements](/assistant/console/policies/general-policies#actions_for_families), the [Actions for Families Addendum](/actions/policies/actions-for-families-addendum), the [Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule), the [EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)](https://gdpr.eu/), and any other relevant statutes before submitting.\n\nTo submit your action to the Actions for Families Program:\n\n1. Select your project in the [Actions on Google Console](https://console.actions.google.com/) and navigate to **Deploy \\\u003e Directory information**.\n2. Toggle the **For Families** setting to *Yes* . You may set the **Category**\n to *Kids \\& family* or another category that best describes your Action.\n\n3. Review the window that pops up, select each checkbox, and click **Join**:\n\n4. In the Actions console, navigate to **Deploy \\\u003e Brand Verification**.\n\n5. Click **Connect site** and provide the URL to your website if you want to [verify your brand](/assistant/console/brand-verification) in order to claim reserved invocation names.\n\n6. Once you have connected a web site, click **Connect app** and provide the URL to your [Teacher Approved app](https://developer.android.com/google-play/guides/teacher-approved-apps) on Google Play.\n\n| **Note:** Connecting a web site and linking to your Teacher Approved app is required *unless* you have entered into a partnership agreement with Google for your family-friendly Action ."]]
