Hi Everyone!
I'm a software developer who for many years has built free apps to explore how I can build the most accessible experiences possible using today's technology, and to share my learnings with other developers to help them consider the accessibility of their own apps.
My latest app is a solitaire game, and while the app is very much a work in progress, it has already received some encouraging feedback from players who are blind. One player has told me that he's been able to complete a game of solitaire for the first time in his life using the app.
Importantly, I've made a number of updates to the app based on suggestions from players, including options for the following:
- VoiceOver can announce moves that are currently available in the game.
- VoiceOver can announce the current state of the game, including optionally having the rank and suit of face-down cards announced.
- VoiceOver can announce the lowest face-up card in a dealt card pile when VoiceOver moves to the top-most card in the pile.
- Extend the width of the top-most card in the dealt card piles all the way across the screen, to allow players to simply move their finger up and down the right edge of the screen to encounter the cards.
Next Steps
While the app has got off to a very exciting start, I'm keen to have more feedback from players to help me learn how I can enhance the game-playing experience further, and to help me understand where I should be focusing my efforts.
The app itself is freely available at the Apple App Store, Accessible Solitaire. If anyone has any thoughts on how I can make the game more usable and more enjoyable, I'd really value your advice, and I'll add your ideas to the list of things I need to concentrate on.
And any suggestions you might have would ultimately help other developers learn too, as I'll be discussing and demonstrating the app again with developers next month. For anyone interested in some of the more technical aspects of the app, I've shared some thoughts on its development at Guy Barker's Articles.
I'd be happy to provide more details on the app if that would help.
Thanks!
Guy
Comments
A couple suggestions.
First, really fun game, I never did manage to find an accessible solitaire on iOS, so really nice to have.
First, maybe there's another way to do this, any way to expand and collapse piles with lots of face cards? You can tap different areas of the screen to jump a bit. But say I have a king through two in pile 3. Usually I swipe through cards, so you have to go through all of those cards to get to the next pile or lowest card, e.g. if you have king through five and want to add a four. I don't have the hints options/buttons on, so maybe that would help here somehow?
Next, we can change the celebration sound, (I really want to win to find out what that whatever century spinning mule thing is all about!), but could we change the others? Particularly, the sound that happens when you successfully move a card is pretty high-pitched and lowers Voiceover audio for a second, so sometimes, it's hard to catch messages, e.g. the revealed card.
Finally, I know you said this hasn't been tested with a keyboard yet, but I saw it was enabled, but not verified, for Mac. It almost works, you need an M series of course, except for a few things. You can use standard Voiceover navigation to move through things and examine the cards and even select and move them.
However, there seems to be no way to close and save the settings, the close button toggles the celebration sound. Also, though you can select cards, none of the buttons for the piles or the next card seem to work. So if I have an eight after hitting "next card", this does work, and I try hitting VO-space on the button to select it to move it on to a nine in the card piles, it doesn't let me select the card.
Similarly, if I have an ace in the piles, I can select it, but when I move to the clubs target pile, and again try to activate the button to put it there, nothing happens. I haven't tried playing with a Bluetooth keyboard on iOS yet, but I'd expect similar results.
To be fair this might be a low priority, since you need an M series Mac to play it and I'm guessing most people on a phone won't try using a BT keyboard. But I mention it because there aren't a lot of games for the Mac. So if you have the right kind, it's nice to be able torun iOS games on it.
Thanks for a great game.
Hi Khomus, thanks for the feedback!
Thanks so much for all this feedback, this is just the sort of thing I was hoping for! I'll add all you've said to the list of things I need to investigate.
Here are a few quick thoughts on your suggestions...
I've not had the suggestion before of making the face-up cards in a dealt card pile collapsible, so that's given me something new to consider. Based on the scenario you describe, relating to fast navigation, there is one setting that might be of interest. Please forgive me if I misunderstood the scenario, and what I'm mentioning here isn't relevant. The setting's called: "Extend hit target", and only has an effect when the device is in portrait orientation. When this setting is on, the top-most card in each dealt card pile extends from its usual place at the end of the dealt card pile, all the way across the screen to the right side of the screen. So in the case where there's a king through five in a pile, the five is much wider than the other cards in the pile. So once you've selected the four, you move your finger down the right edge of the screen until you encounter the five. This avoids the need to move your finger across the screen as well as up and down before encountering the five. I'm not sure if that helps with your scenario.
I can definitely increase the lists of celebration sounds. I added a new fanfare sound recently, so you only have to have the 18th century spinning mule if you really want to hear it! I found that spinning mule sound interesting, as I happened to visit an old mill a couple of months ago where they had one of those old machines still operating, but I get how it's not really everyone's favourite sound. I should be able to add a lot of new sounds, I just need to make sure I include the licencing information to acknowledge where I got the sound from.
And I can look into replacing the other incidental sounds too. The current sounds where ones I created at the kitchen table, hitting things that were lying around, so hardly professional. I really don't want the sounds to impact the VoiceOver announcements, so that's something I need to work on.
Thanks also for the details on the keyboard use. So far I've only worked on the keyboard use on a Windows device, and as far as I know that was working ok. With the keyboard, I could add more keyboard shortcuts for specific things, such as the screen reader announcing the status of specific areas of the game, without having to announce the state of the entire game. Unfortunately, something's broken with the software I use to build the app on Windows at the moment, and I can't release any updates to the Windows version. Hopefully that'll be fixed before too long. But I can start exploring the possibility of using a keyboard on the Mac. I must confess I'm not actually a Mac user, and the only reason I have a Mac is because it's a requirement for building iOS apps. (I don't even have an Apple keyboard.) But hopefully I can begin to learn a little more about it all and get a feel for what it would take to get the Accessible Solitaire app working with a keyboard on the Mac.
Thanks again for all your suggestions, I really appreciate it!
Re: keyboard.
I suspect you could also use a Bluetooth keyboard with iOS and get the same behavior, and if it's fixed for iOS, it will be fixed for Mac. I'll check it with a keyboard on iOS later today.
I totally want to hear the spinning mule! That is awesome, I love historical sounds like that. Spinning wheels are pretty interesting, for example.
I'll try the wide screen setting and portrait orientation, thanks!
Re: Sounds
Sounds good, thanks, I'll look forward to hearing how things go. Regarding the celebratory sounds, perhaps I should add a "Preview sound" button to the Settings page, so that you don't actually have to win a game to hear the sound.
@Kohmus
I haven't tried this game yet, but for the issue with sounds cutting off VO messages, have you tried turning off audio ducking?
I've found that it gets in the way of sounds in a lot of games, so I made a custom activity that turns off audio ducking whenever I open a game on my phone, and turns it back on when I switch to another app.
Re: audio ducking.
I'll check settings to be sure, but I'm pretty sure I have it off altogether. It's useful occasionally, e.g. with music, but for the most part I just find it to be annoying, so I turn it off.
Phaze 10?
I got both the Soplitaire game and the Grid game installed and will try them later.
I have been looking for an accessible Phaze 10 game but have not had any luck with that. Feel like giving it a shot? I’d be a willing tester. I’m sure a lot of folks on here would love to try it also.
@Kohmus Preview Sounds
Hi, following your comments on the celebratory sounds, I've just added a "Preview sound" button to the Settings page. This means you can choose the sound you prefer before playing the entire game. This button is in version 2.25, which is now available at the Apple App Store. At some point I'll look into adding more choice of celebratory sounds, other than a trumpet fanfare and an old mill engine. If there's a sound you'd particularly like, I can try to dig around for one to add to the game.
@wiljames Grid Games
Hi, I should give a little background on the Grid Games app. I stopped working on this app a couple of years ago, as despite me finding it to be a very interesting exploration, it didn't generate any interest. I'm afraid because of the lack of interest, I never improved the quality of the app to be very usable. The app has five grid-based games in it. I'd ignore one of those games, called "Where's WCAG?", as I never should have added that and I'll remove it if I work on the app again. The other games are Sudoku, Squares (which is where squares are moved around the grid to put them in a sequence), Leaf Sweeper (which is my own, less violent, version of the Minesweeper game), and Pairs, (where the aim is to find pairs of squares). I was particularly interested in the Pairs game, as the VoiceOver names and descriptions could be customised, which makes it a much more personal game. The trouble was that the process of customising the Pairs game was really complicated, and no-one would want to run through the steps. If any of the Sudoku, Squares, Leaf Sweeper, or Pairs games might be of interest to you, I could look into what it would take to update the games to be more playable than they are today.
I'm afraid I don't think I'd be able to work on a Phase 10 game for a long time. All my available time for apps these days is used up on the Accessible Solitaire app. And even with just that one app, I can find it a challenge to find time to add features and maintain its quality. I've released a version of the app for all of iOS, Android, and Windows, and it takes a while to do my best to verify I'm not breaking something in the app across these platforms when I make an update. So to start a whole new game wouldn't be practical at the moment. But if there's something you feel would help with the usability of the Accessible Solitaire app, (or maybe in the Grid Games app), it'd hopefully be more likely I could update the app accordingly. Thanks!
Re: Wide cards in landscape mode.
I haven't tried this yet because I can't get the app open in landscape. The home screen defaults to portrait and won't reorient. If I open an app that will, e.g. Mail, and have Accessible Solitaire open already, if I try to open it from the app switcher in landscape, I get the message about how orientation can't be changed if the app is already open.
Is there a trick to starting this in landscape while Voiceover is running?
@Khomus Opening the app while VoiceOver's running
I'm not aware of issues opening the app when VoiceOver's running. I just tried it on my iPad mini running iPadOS 18.6, and it seemed to work ok. On my device the app could start up with the device either landscape or portrait. It's important that the app really has been closed down before starting the app again, rather than the app still being running in the background. So this means not moving to the app using the app switcher which presents the apps which are running in the background. You'd want to close Accessible Solitaire down from the App Switcher, and then restart the app, and the app should remember the previous state of the game when the app's restarted.
Regarding the setting to increase the width of the topmost card at the top of each of the dealt card piles, that setting's only available in portrait more. So if the app opens up ok for you with the device in a portrait orientation, hopefully the "Extend hit target" setting will work ok.
This is my favorite solo game! 🤓
Hello,
If I want to play a game by myself, this one is definitely my favorite!
I love the new hint option, where it'll tell you possible moves.
A setting to have this be spoken automatically would be a great enhancement.
Is that possible?
Re: Wide cards.
Ha! See I don't even need to worry about all that then! I'll try it after breakfast. Also the keyboard, I forgot to get round to that.
@KE8UPE Announcing available moves
Hi, thanks for the feedback! It's great to hear that the game's working ok for you.
And thanks for the suggestion around adding a setting for having available moves announced automatically after a move. That sounds like a very interesting idea. Hopefully I should be able to add that in the next couple of weeks, and I'll let you know when I've made progress on that.
While the existing feature for announcing moves is helpful, it's not really a hint, as there's no guarantee that a move that's announced will help to win the game. Rather it's just an announcement of what moves can be made at that time. But it does mean that it avoids the need to manually navigate through the entire game to learn what moves are available. There are a couple of things that the announcement doesn't include. The first is any move that might be made from the target card piles, down to the dealt card piles. It's not often you'd want to move a card like that, but sometimes it can unblock a move between dealt card piles, so technically it could be a useful move. The other thing that's not included in the announcement is a move of a card to an empty dealt card pile. If that was included, then the announcement would often be really, really long, and other useful information that's announced might be missed. But other than those two things, I think all available moves are announced. I really should update the help content to make all that clear.
@KE8UPE The setting to announce available moves is now available
Hi, thanks again for your suggestion to have available moves announced automatically after a move is made. I've just updated the app at the Apple App Store, and this new version (version 2.26) now has the setting. If no move is available, then there's no change in the announcement, but if there is an available move, then VoiceOver will announce that move after announcing the results of the move just completed. Today an available move announcement doesn't include any move to an empty card pile, so it's necessary for players to note when a move results in a pile becoming empty. (The available move announcement also doesn't include moves from the target card piles down to dealt card piles.)
If you have any other ideas on how the game might be made more enjoyable using VoiceOver, please do let me know. By the way, I've also just updated the Android version of the app at the Google Play Store to have the new setting that you suggested. The Android version doesn't behave in exactly the same way as the iOS version, but it's pretty similar.
On another topic, to install the new iOS version of the app to my iPad mini just now, I first searched for "Accessible Solitaire", and found many solitaire apps appeared in the search results before my app. And many of those apps have thousands of ratings, while my app has 3. (That's not 3 thousand ratings, rather, just 3.) So I'm wondering what I can do to make more people aware of that app. I know the Accessible Solitaire app's a work in progress, but it does seem to be working quite well for some people. If there are others who might enjoy playing the game, I'd like them to be aware of it. If you have suggestions on how I can spread the word about the app, any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks!
love this!
Just won my first game, loving the app! I have a suggestion, would it be possible for you to make the target piles headings, so that it is easier to navigate through them by swiping? When the stacks have a lot of cards it can be tedious to swipe all the way through the pile.
Re: Swiping through piles.
Turn on the option for wide cards. Then slide your finger down the right edge of the screen. Works a treat.
I am addicted to this game
I've been playing this game almost nonstop since Saturday of last week. I use a braille display along with VoiceOver and this game works great with both. I also have been looking for years for an accessible Solitaire game on IOS, and it's awesome to finally have one. Keep up the awesome work. I also like the setting that announces the available moves. Although, I haven't won since implementing that new setting. Lol! But, I'm going to keep trying.
@Paige Moving to the target card piles as headings
Hi, thanks very much for the suggestion to have the target card piles be headers, I'm always interested to learn how I can improve the game-playing experience. I've just published a new version of the Accessible Solitaire app, version 2.27, which is available now at the Apple App Store and incorporates your suggestion. I'm not at all an expert in the use of VoiceOver, so while it seemed to work ok for me, please do let me know if you have feedback. Going forward, I'd rather release this sort of update first as a test release, so that people can try it out and make sure I've not broken something before I publish it fully. If you'd like to be included as a tester of the app in the future, I'd need to add you the list of testers using an e-mail address for you. If this is something you'd be interested in, if you could send me an e-mail address to use (to gbarkerz@hotmail.com) and I'll add you to list. Thanks.
And by the way, this is the description of the new feature as it shows up at the Apple App Store:
In Accessible Solitaire version 2.27, all the target card piles are headings. This means that when using heading navigation with the VoiceOver screen reader, it's more efficient to reach the target card piles. For example, if VoiceOver is at an Ace card in dealt card pile four, when heading navigation is enabled, a swipe-up gesture will move to the spades target card pile directly, bypassing all other dealt card piles. Also, the top card in the upturned card pile is also a heading. This means that when VoiceOver is at the Next Card button and heading navigation is enabled, a swipe-down gesture will move directly to the top upturned card, bypassing the other two lower cards in the upturned card pile.
@Kohmus, @Wayne Scott Jr, Thanks for the feedback!
Hi, thanks so much for letting me know how things are going with the app, you can't imagine how helpful this is to me. I've been building exploratory apps for over twenty years, and recent feedback has meant that this is one of the two most rewarding apps for me in all that time. Please do let me know in the future if you have suggestions on how the app can be made more playable, (or if there are problems with it somehow), and I'll add your feedback to the list of things I need to consider. I'm always encouraging other app developers to consider accessibility, and so I periodically write related technical articles to share my learnings. I've just published another article, and included some of the recent feedback to illustrate how practical it is for developers to build accessible experiences. For anyone interested, my latest article is at The Reliability of the .NET MAUI Accessible Solitaire App : Part 1.
I don’t ever play games on my phone. I’ve never tried.
Hi, I have never played any games on my iPhone ever. I’ve never tried to. I always felt like I could never get the concept of a certain kind of game from just touching a screen in an app even if I had VoiceOver enabled. I’m just so used to changeable games. I grew up you know before they were really any smartphones or apps or anything like that. So all my games have been tangible electronic battery operated games or physical card games or physical board games. So I just cannot get the concept of moving my hand around and a touchscreen is completely flat even with speech enabled. Do you wanna play a game on a phone. I’m glad this is something that other blind people have been able to figure out, but I just don’t see myself being one of them. Also, because of my CP, I think it would be really difficult for me to have to do extra swiping and tapping on my phone more than I already do for just general phone navigation. Yes, I use voice and voice control, but there are still a lot of things that you have to use your hands to swipe the phone for because you can’t do everything with voice control and voiceover enabled yet Not completely hands-free. That’s my dream someday. And then if that ever does come, then I may try to play a game on my phone. But until then, I have to keep doing what I’ve been doing keeping my physical tangible games. Yes, I’m still able to have some. I’ve been able to still find physical battery operated handheld games. Never really gotten into card games. I’ve tried to. I just couldn’t get into them. I’m glad this app is working great for a lot of people though. I’m glad you guys seem to love it. It’s also great to see a really responsive developer on here. Who cares about Accessibility and it takes the feedback of everybody seriously. That’s great.
@Paige, Help with testing the Accessible Solitaire app
Hi, thanks very much for sending over an e-mail address I can use to add you to the list of testers of the app. When I next make a significant update to the app, or a change involving the VoiceOver announcements and I'm not sure if I'm using VoiceOver right, I'll publish a test version first so I can feel more confident that I've not broken something. Thanks again for your help.
And if anyone else here on AppleVis would also like to help out, please contact me via e-mail, and send an e-mail address that you'd be happy for me to use, and I'll add you to the list of testers. My e-mail address is gbarkerz@hotmail.com.
@Singer Girl, Thanks for your thoughts on game-playing
Hi, thanks very much for all your thoughts on playing games on a phone, you've given me a lot to think about. In the past I've have been able to play a game of Accessible Solitaire on my iPad using my voice, but without a screen reader running. I've made a lot of changes to the app since then, and so need to spend a while making sure that voice control of the app still works. Once I've done that, I'd like to research the experience today when both a screen reader and voice control are running at the same time on an Apple device. If someone here on AppleVis already knows what the limitations are, I'd certainly value any insights you have. Depending on what the limitations are, I wonder if the app itself can do any useful in addition to help with the game playing experience. Lots of things for me to think about, so thanks again.