Only about 26% of mobile app users will return to an app within day one of installing it. Getting quality right from the get-go is therefore more important than it’s ever been. Part of the solution comes down to including accessibility features that will allow a broader range of users to try your app. This includes features like color contrast, screen reader compatibility, and haptic feedback, among others.
While accessibility is often at the forefront when discussing government portals or enterprise SaaS, it’s become increasingly important in other sectors, too. Casual gaming has become one of its champions, as games seek to expand their user base to as many players as possible. As a result, the UI/UX of a title designed to let users play solitaire free can’t just look good. It also has to meet a checklist of accessibility requirements that must be rigorously tested.
Visual Accessibility: Beyond the Color Palette
Card games like solitaire have a well-defined color scheme. Decks use cards with red and black suits, which are laid out on a green table. That’s all well and good for regular players with unimpaired eyesight. But anyone with Protanopia (red blindness) or Deuteranopia (green blindness) is in trouble. For a casual game to be accessible to visually impaired players, it needs to meet their needs.
Here are a few things you can do to improve the app’s visual UI:
- Tools like the Color Contrast Checker help testers ensure that text and interactive elements stand out against the background. To be WCAG 2.1 AA-compliant, text should have a 4.5:1 contrast ratio against the background.
- Testers should also ensure color isn’t the only way information is shown to the player. For our online solitaire example, that means ensuring the suits are clearly visible on the cards. The shape should be high-contrast to be readable at a glance, even for color-blind users.
- Mobile platforms like iOS and Android have built-in screen readers that read out labels attached to interactive elements. Companies should provide descriptive tags to each element to allow visually impaired users to access their games.
Motor Accessibility: Solving the ‘Fat Finger’
Users with motor impairments can be put off by games that require high-precision tapping. This is what the industry dubs as a ‘fat finger’ problem, and it targets impaired users disproportionally. While you can argue that’s important for more competitive games, casual mobile titles should have no issues accounting for motor-impaired players.
Testers should check that the game’s interactive elements are easy to tap on. Of course, this can be a balancing act. Players want the hit box to be big enough to be easy to tap, but not so big as to cause cards to overlap. Adding alternative inputs can help players with disabilities enjoy the game.
Companies should also implement haptic feedback so players can feel when a card is successfully moved or when an invalid move is attempted. This can assist users with low vision by allowing them to feel whether the move they made went through. Testers should ensure the triggers work across different hardware and are consistently different to avoid confusion for players.
Cognitive Accessibility: Managing Mental Load
The goal of any good casual game is to help you find a ‘flow state’. That right balance between challenge and relaxation, where you keep knocking out round after round. However, it can be difficult to keep a player engaged when they’re constantly interrupted by intrusive ads that pop up and flash.
This is doubly true for users with ADHD and dyslexia, who can quickly become overwhelmed and give up on your game.
- Pop-ups and ads are an inevitable part of many mobile apps, but they should never hijack the Back button. Allowing users to return to familiar ground quickly reduces cognitive load and makes your casual online game more accessible.
- Testers should ensure that newly added features don’t disrupt the navigation flow players are accustomed to. A linear path from game launch to round start goes a long way toward helping users find their way to the solitaire board.
- Timers can be an unnecessary stressor for certain players, who may focus on them to the point of not enjoying the game. Consider moving the timer to separate timed challenges that players seek out themselves, or add an option to turn off timers altogether.
Automated vs Manual Testing
While automated tools like Google’s Accessibility Scanner are helpful, they’re not foolproof. Missing alt text and poor contrast are easily detected by a tool and flagged as errors. However, to ensure every important detail is caught, manual exploratory testing is mandatory.
Automated tools cannot replace a seasoned tester who places themselves in the shoes of an impaired player to find friction points. Does a game take too long to navigate by screen reader, or are the card hitboxes too small to be enjoyable? These are things a tester will catch easily, but a script will struggle to capture.
Accessibility in the Earliest Stages
A lot of software companies put accessibility on the backburner. It’s something to test in the final stages, at which point it can be too late to make any meaningful changes.
To avoid those mistakes, consider how your app will support screen readers and color-blind users even during the planning stage. If possible, allow real users with disabilities to try your game in the testing stage. They are guaranteed to catch issues even seasoned testers might overlook. Finally, map out planned accessibility features and track their completion in an Accessibility Conformance Report.
Inclusivity is Good Business
Accounting for inclusivity makes a lot of sense in 2026. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. That’s around 16% of the world’s population that is often overlooked and left mostly underserved, which is a staggering number all things considered. Enabling accessibility features and ensuring they work in your casual mobile game isn’t just the right thing to do, but essential. It’s also a savvy business decision that opens your product to a much larger audience.
Sometimes, that’s as simple as ensuring the contrast on the cards is easy to read. Other times, it requires a significant effort to implement a control scheme accessible to motor-impaired users. Every action we take as software makers and testers makes the digital world available to more people – and that’s a goal worth pursuing.
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