Accessible Solitaire

The Accessible Solitaire app has been designed to provide a fun experience for all players.

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Guy Barker – Technical Accessibility Enthusiast

For some background on me, visit All Good Things, Explorations into Assistive Technology, and Reflections on Twenty Years of Exploration.

Thoughts on my recent explorations around building accessible apps are in Barker’s Articles.

Please share your tips on how to get the most from the Accessible Solitaire game

I’m getting some very encouraging feedback from players playing the new Tri Peaks game in the Accessible Solitaire app! A number of people have told me they’ve won the game, and for people trying to beat their own records, I’ve been told my one player who uses VoiceOver, she’s won the game in an impressive 6 minutes and 50 seconds.

I do have a number of fixes and improvements that I need to make to the app, which hopefully I’ll be able to sort out over time. For example, when playing with VoiceOver on iOS, after completing a move, you need to wait a couple of seconds for VoiceOver to settle before making the next move. And with TalkBack on Android, swiping left and right through the cards in the rows, moves TalkBack diagonally up and down between rows.

But once you get used to how the screen reader works in the game, I think the game might be the perfect introduction to the Accessible Solitaire app as each move only requires one click, rather than two clicks as it does with the Pyramid and Klondike games.

I’m not a screen reader user myself, but I have won the Tri Peaks solitaire game using VoiceOver without viewing the screen at all when playing the game. For me, I found the following settings very helpful.

  • Automatic announcements. This helps me quickly learn what move, if any, is available after a move’s completed. The automatic move announcement is made 3 seconds after a move is completed, and may interrupt what the screen reader is already saying.
  • Headings. This makes it quick for me to swipe up or down to move the screen reader through the rows in the triangles, up to (or down from) the Next Card button or the upturned card on the waste pile. And when moving through the rows in this way, I know I’m always moving to the start of a row, and I find that predictability helpful.
  • Sounds. This helps me quickly learn whether an attempt to move a card was successful or not.

I also turned on the setting to show the screen reader related buttons, as I needed to click the button to announce available moves if I forgot what the automatic announcement said. And of course I turned on the celebratory sound just to make completing the game more fun!

With the above settings turned on, I found I never moved VoiceOver manually by moving my finger around the screen, rather I always swiped left, right, up or down.

If you have any tips for players on how to make the game more fun to play, please do share them here. I’d love to hear what settings you use, or how you use a screen reader, a switch device, or your speech, to get the most from the Accessible Solitaire game!

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7 responses to “Please share your tips on how to get the most from the Accessible Solitaire game”

  1. Guy Barker Avatar
    Guy Barker

    After I made the request for tips from players on how to get the most from the Accessible Solitaire app, I got the amazing list of suggestions below from Angela, who’s been a great help while I’ve been building the app. Maybe some of these tips could help you while you play the Accessible Solitaire app yourself. Thanks very much Angela!

    1. As mentioned before, in tri peaks solitaire, if you’ve made a move in the tri peaks layout, and the Voiceover cursor moves to a card that you know good and well is a valid move, go ahead and double-tap on that card. That will dramatically increase your speed in the game.
    2. Use the Pause button for times not only when you have to do things like send a text, make a phone call, or use the bathroom, but also use the Pause button for times when you want to listen to the game state (klondike solitaire (particularly) or the open cards (pyramid and tri peaks solitaire) and think about your next move. That way, the timer doesn’t keep running while you’re in those thinking sessions.
    3. In tri peaks solitaire, when you’re listening to the open cards, if you hear that you can make a chain of moves in the tri peaks layout, go ahead and make that chain, even if you need to swipe through the layout to find the cards you want. That will open up more space in the tri peaks layout. One time, I drew a 6 from the draw pile, and I was able to make a HUGE chain of moves in the tri peaks layout that went 5 6 7 8 9 10 jack queen king.
    4. First-time players of any solitaire variant in the app should have the automatic move announcements turned on so they can understand when possible moves can be made, and why they can be made. Later, as players become more advanced, and their strategy improves, they may want to turn the automatic move announcements off so they can determine for themselves what move they want to make next. Regardless of skill level, the screen reader buttons (game state, available moves, and open cards) should be kept on at all times. Advanced players of any solitaire variant in the app will want, in particular, to use the Game State and Open Cards buttons quite frequently. I know I do!
    5. If you’re an advanced Voiceover user, and you keep Speak Hints turned off by default, I recommend going to Settings, Accessibility, Voiceover, and creating an activity called Solitaire and turning the Speak Hints option on. Apply this activity to the Accessible Solitaire app. This will greatly benefit you, particularly in the klondike variant, because when you’re looking at a huge sequence of face-up cards, Voiceover will tell you what the top face-up card is.
    6. This next tip is for people like me who are language nerds who want to learn the names of the cards and buttons in Polish. Once you’ve set the app’s preferred language to Polish, I recommend, in the Solitaire Voiceover activity you created, that you select Polish as the voice language, and, for the Polish voice, I recommend Krzysztof Enhanced. If you don’t do that, Voiceover may pronounce the Polish words using English pronunciation, and that’s NOT what you want.
    7. In the Polish version of the app, you’ll hear words and phrases that sound very similar in pronunciation. For instance, the Polish phrases for “next card” and “open cards” sound very close. Also, the Polish numbers 9 and 10 sound similar as well. Listen carefully to how each phrase is pronounced. Over time, you’ll know which phrase corresponds to which button, and you won’t accidentally double-tap the wrong button.

    In my last email, I mentioned the use of the Pause button when you want to listen to the open cards or the game state and think about your next move without the timer running in the background. Yes, that will seemingly increase your speed (I won a tri peaks solitaire game in 3 minutes and 29 seconds by pausing the game every time I wanted to listen to the open cards and plan my next move), I would be careful in how often you do that. I’m finding myself pausing the game to think now ONLY when I did not quite catch what all the open cards were the first time. But if I caught what they were the first time, I’d continue making moves right then. I will say that pausing the game in order to consider your next move is a good way to improve your logical thinking skills and your strategy in all solitaire variants!

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  2. Guy Barker Avatar
    Guy Barker

    More feedback from an Accessible Solitaire player:

    I have a tip for parents who have kids that are interested in wanting to learn how to play solitaire. Tri peaks solitaire is EXCELLENT as an introduction to the game! What I would suggest to parents is to create their own 52 card deck with numbers from 1 to 13 and suits with animal names (for instance, cats, dogs, horses, pigs). These would be actual physical cards, not cards in the Accessible Solitaire app. I think using that created deck with numbers and animal suits would keep the kid interested in the game. It would also help kids with their counting (at least from 1 to 13) and animal recognition skills! Once a kid has mastered tri peaks solitaire with the number/animal deck the parents created, they may introduce them to pyramid solitaire (still using that deck) so they can work with their kids on basic addition skills, since cards have to be paired up that add to 13. With the number/animal deck, a kid would see, for instance, that a 13 of horses could be discarded by itself, and a 5 of cats could be paired with an 8 of pigs and be discarded together, since that makes 13. Once parents feel that their kids have got the hang of how to play both tri peaks and pyramid solitaire with the number/animal card deck, they can move them on to a real 52 card deck (like in the Accessible Solitaire app) and teach them the value of each card, from ace (1) to king (13) and see how they do playing tri peaks or pyramid solitaire with actual playing cards! Variants like klondike and baker’s dozen should be taught later, as they have more complex rules. And between those two variants, I think klondike should be taught first.

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  3. Ceci Avatar
    Ceci

    Hi, thank you so so much for creating this game. I have really enjoyed playing it. I have a suggestion that would make the game even more enjoyable. Particularly Klondike Solitaire. Right now, voiceover announce every car that is face up on every dealt card pile. So for example, if initially the top card on a adult pile card  has is a 10of diamonds, and then I added a nine of spades, and then an eighth of hearts, when I flick through the pyramid voiceover announces 10, nine, eight. The problem is that when each pile begins to have a lot of cards this can become incredibly confusing. It is also very very hard to remember what card is on top of each pile because by the time you get to the end of the pyramid you have heard 20 or 30 different cards. I was wondering if there could be an option for VoiceOver to announce only the top most card on each pile? Like the way it does on the target piles? That way it would be very nice and easy to just quickly flick through the pyramid and be able to quickly see just the top cards on each pile.

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    1. Guy Barker Avatar
      Guy Barker

      Hi Ceci, thanks for letting me know that the game’s working out ok for you, I’m really pleased to hear that.

      And thanks for your suggestion on how the Klondike solitaire might be made easier to play. As I understand things, the problem relates to swiping to move VoiceOver through all the dealt card piles. Once a pile has lots of face-up cards, you have to swipe through all those cards before you can reach the topmost card in that pile, and often that card is the most interesting one in the pile because it’s the one that might be moved to one of the target card piles. So you’d like a quick way to know what cards are the topmost cards in all of the dealt card piles.

      Currently there’s a setting to have two buttons shown in the Klondike game which trigger specific VoiceOver announcements. The first announces the entire state of the game, which takes a long time to announce, and is way more information than you’re talking about here. The second button announces available moves in the game, which might include some of those topmost cards in the dealt card piles, but it’s not the same as having only the topmost cards announced. The other solitaire games in the app also include a third button to announce which cards are open, which means they can be selected. In the Pyramid, Tri Peaks, and Baker’s Dozen games, only cards that are not partially covered by other cards are open. So that means in the Baker’s Dozen game, that last announcement relating to open cards, is actually only announcing the topmost cards in the dealt cards piles because they’re not partially covered by other cards.

      I could add that third button to the Klondike game too, so that when clicked, VoiceOver announces only the topmost cards in the dealt cards piles. I think that would announce the information you’re after. Players would have to know that the announcement really is only including the topmost cards, rather than all the cards in the piles which can be selected as it does in the other games. In Klondike, any cards in the dealt card piles can be selected regardless of whether they’re the topmost cards in the pile.

      Do you think this is a good solution, or would you prefer another approach? Thanks.

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    2. Guy Barker Avatar
      Guy Barker

      Hi Ceci, I’ve just submitted Accessible Solitaire Version 3.15 to the Apple App Store. Hopefully it’ll be available at the Store in the next couple of days. Below is the content I provided for the “What’s New” section of the app at the Store. If this update doesn’t help to make the Klondike game more enjoyable, please do let me know and I’ll have a rethink. Thanks.

      Accessible Solitaire Version 3.15 expands the behaviour of the screen reader button which announces open cards. Previously this button would announce open cards in the Tri Peaks, Pyramid, and Baker’s Dozen games. Now, in addition to those, it announces the topmost cards in the dealt card piles in the Klondike game. Please note that in the Klondike game the topmost card in each dealt card pile is not the only card that can be selected, but based on player feedback, it would be helpful for a screen reader to announce all the topmost cards in the Klondike game. Also note that if a dealt card pile is not included in the announcement, then it is empty.

      Version 3.5 also improves the visual layout of the cards in the games. There is now a slight gap between the dealt cards and the target card piles regardless of the game being played and the orientation of the device.

      Version 3.5 has had some changes made relating to loading up a previous game session when the app is started or when moving between games, and when the cards are dealt when a game is restarted. Currently the app does need some improvements in this area, so thanks for your patience while I continue to work on that. For example, the games can take a few seconds to start, and players should wait for the game to be ready. Also, in rare cases a dealt card pile might not appear at all or a card in the pile might visually appear empty. Restarting the app should fix those issues until I’ve had an opportunity to make the app more robust.

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      1. Ceci Avatar
        Ceci

        Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I have actually been playing a lot this past couple days, and I now understand why all cards have to be visible. There are certain moves and strategy planning where they have to be visible. I am now much quicker at navigating through the piles. I have won my first game, and I have been loving moving all sorts of things around. Thank you so so much for making this game. It is so great.

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  4. Guy Barker Avatar
    Guy Barker

    Below are a collection of tips from player feedback (some of which relates to Polish text in the game):

    If you’re wondering if I have a tip to help you win a game of baker’s dozen, yes, I do. My tip is: Work on moving one rank at a time to each foundation pile. For instance, concentrate on moving all the aces first, then the 2’s, then the 3’s, etc. Sometimes, that train may have to go off the track a little bit; in other words, you may need to go ahead and move a card to a foundation pile and make it higher than the others. For instance, you may notice that the 2 of hearts (2 kier) is buried at the bottom of a dealt card pile, and all the other 2’s are in their foundation piles. If you know the 3 of spades (3 pik) is the top card in that dealt card pile, you may want to go ahead and move it to the spades pile (stos pik), then continue to move other cards to dealt card piles and/or foundation piles until you reach that 2 of hearts (2 kier). Remember, treat baker’s dozen like a game of chess. Plan several moves ahead. USE THAT PAUSE BUTTON FREQUENTLY. That way, the timer won’t keep running as you plan your next moves.

    Here’s my tip for baker’s dozen: All the cards in the 13 dealt card piles are face-up. When playing the game, frequently use the Pause button for planning moves. I recommend manually scanning each of the 13 dealt card piles during those planning sessions; that way, you can really think about the effect moving a specific card will have. Also, since you cannot move multiple face-up cards that are in sequence like you can in klondike solitaire, I think the Open Cards button should announce the top card in each of the 13 dealt card piles.

    I have a couple tips for the baker’s dozen game:

    1. Frequently use the PAUSE Game button so you can think about your next move. During those thinking sessions, don’t just press the Game State button to listen to what’s in all 13 piles; manually scan each pile so that you can better visualize what effect specific card moves will have.
    2. For quicker navigation between the 13 dealt card piles, set your Voiceover rotor to Containers. When you swipe up and down between each pile, you’ll hear the bottom card first. Swipe right to view all the remaining cards in that pile.
    3. Remember that, unlike klondike solitaire, suits don’t matter when moving cards between dealt card piles; the only thing that matters is that the cards being moved are one rank lower. So plan your moves carefully!

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