Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Sudoko on the computer (Question) (self.Blind)
submitted by moosemana
Howdy Ya'll,
So I am currently enrolled in college and have an interesting computer Science task to try and accomplish over the next year and was wondering if you'd be able to give me some insight or direction to head in. My project is to create a working version of Sudoku completely programmed without external devices to be used by the blind. I really don't know any great ways to go about this other than giving the user the ability to navigate the 9x9 box and have the numbers read off individually as they path over them. I have some slightly more complex ideas like creating hotkeys to jump between boxes and what not, if you're interested I can write up a more detailed plan but I somewhat want to hear your thoughts before spoiling my own as to not cause bias.
Some of the primary questions I have would be how quickly a user would be able to partially memorize the locations of the numbers in a new randomized game. For me part of what makes Sudoku playable is being able to constantly look back and forth to numbers and rows without any punishment, If I was restricted or forced to memorize the location I feel it would be much harder. I imagine being blind you'd likely have better spacial recognition but not sure if that's something I should build around or if I should cater to somebody who needs to go over the letters every time.
Thanks so much for your help!
California_Screams 1 points 4y ago
**Is your project limited to the completely blind?** I'm not completely blind, but I have tunnel vision and deteriorating central vision. One feature I think would be cool is if clicking of the square caused the row and column to its in to enlarge and color invert so I could pick them out.
Maybe I could click one 3 x 3 square to enlarge that and toggle between numbers which then turn squares red where there not allowed by another number in either the same column or row.
**If you are limited to completely blind:** then a must have is some sort of feedback when you leave one square and go to another. with no sight it will be extremely hard to tell where you are in the puzzle even with the number reading feature. So play a sound when one moves the mouse from one square to another. Maybe have a different sound when one leaves a 3x3 and when one leaves the puzzle all together. Counting beeps will make it easy to orient yourself in the puzzle.
Also consider a command that automatically moves the cursor to the top left square of the puzzle so that the person can quickly reorient themselves at any time.
These are absolute musts.
Now for the bells and whistles I'd put a sort of sweeper mechanic you could turn on to see if a number is allowed in the square. like I turn on a 2 sweeper and click a square it chimes if its allowed buzzes if not. then I can ask why its not allowed. It will say "2 in same 3x3 at A6" or "2 in same row at B5" etc.
Thats all I can think of.
Maybe I could click one 3 x 3 square to enlarge that and toggle between numbers which then turn squares red where there not allowed by another number in either the same column or row.
**If you are limited to completely blind:** then a must have is some sort of feedback when you leave one square and go to another. with no sight it will be extremely hard to tell where you are in the puzzle even with the number reading feature. So play a sound when one moves the mouse from one square to another. Maybe have a different sound when one leaves a 3x3 and when one leaves the puzzle all together. Counting beeps will make it easy to orient yourself in the puzzle.
Also consider a command that automatically moves the cursor to the top left square of the puzzle so that the person can quickly reorient themselves at any time.
These are absolute musts.
Now for the bells and whistles I'd put a sort of sweeper mechanic you could turn on to see if a number is allowed in the square. like I turn on a 2 sweeper and click a square it chimes if its allowed buzzes if not. then I can ask why its not allowed. It will say "2 in same 3x3 at A6" or "2 in same row at B5" etc.
Thats all I can think of.
moosemana [OP] 1 points 4y ago
I believe the intention was to make it for the fully impaired. Because of this, I was planning on taking the mouse out of the equation altogether. My initial best idea was to have 9 hotkeys such as qwe, asd, zxc which would each correspond to a 3x3 within the game. From here you would be able to navigate using another set such as the arrow keys, with this both hands could be in use and you could quickly navigate between them. I also planned on using audio ques for each movement and to say what number is in the box so if the row was 134 it would say each number as the box is highlighted.
Another option is to give each square a value like how chess has c3 or d8 but I felt saying d8, 3 would make moving around tedious and would be annoying if you went back over squares each time.
I do like the idea of an auto-correct mechanic that would tell you if doing something wrong, I will look into that more for sure.
When you play is it difficult for you to look around the board quickly to check for something and do you believe it would be more difficult for somebody fully blind (more than the obvious lack of visual).
Another important piece of Sudoku is usually putting "guesses" in boxes, often done by writing the number in smaller format usually in two boxes, doing this on the computer is difficult enough already but while blind do you think having it say "maybe 2, maybe 8" if you had set those as guesses?
Thanks so much for your response!
Another option is to give each square a value like how chess has c3 or d8 but I felt saying d8, 3 would make moving around tedious and would be annoying if you went back over squares each time.
I do like the idea of an auto-correct mechanic that would tell you if doing something wrong, I will look into that more for sure.
When you play is it difficult for you to look around the board quickly to check for something and do you believe it would be more difficult for somebody fully blind (more than the obvious lack of visual).
Another important piece of Sudoku is usually putting "guesses" in boxes, often done by writing the number in smaller format usually in two boxes, doing this on the computer is difficult enough already but while blind do you think having it say "maybe 2, maybe 8" if you had set those as guesses?
Thanks so much for your response!
California_Screams 1 points 4y ago
Yeah you’re right get rid of the mouse most blind people don’t use them, but I still think jumping to the top left at any given time is handy.
As far as my challenges playing sudoku I’ll be honest I haven’t played in years, ever since reading newspaper sized font has become too much of a strain. This morning I tried it to get an idea but yes I would have trouble jumping back and forth to check mainly because when your eyes make a leap like that you’re really just jumping to something in your peripheral which I don’t have. So without those initial landmarks it was super hard to see how what I was looking at lined up with what I had just seen.
So I worked essentially one 3x3 at a time. I have a mouse over magnifier I found I could look at a little more than a 3x3 block like a 5x5 at a time between the magnification and limited peripherals, without my eyes confusing which row or collumn numbers went in.
That also happens to be about the amount I could memorize at a given time. So I would pick a block look at a neighboring block memorize it go back and tick off those numbers and repeat. I play chess both over the board and online and I find memorizing chess positions to be way easier. 1 there are 17 more squares in sudoku. 2 there are way more blank squares in chess. 3 humans are bad with memorizing numbers. So I think doing a soduku from memory would be like super human.
It’s a hard project sudoku is inherently visual
As far as my challenges playing sudoku I’ll be honest I haven’t played in years, ever since reading newspaper sized font has become too much of a strain. This morning I tried it to get an idea but yes I would have trouble jumping back and forth to check mainly because when your eyes make a leap like that you’re really just jumping to something in your peripheral which I don’t have. So without those initial landmarks it was super hard to see how what I was looking at lined up with what I had just seen.
So I worked essentially one 3x3 at a time. I have a mouse over magnifier I found I could look at a little more than a 3x3 block like a 5x5 at a time between the magnification and limited peripherals, without my eyes confusing which row or collumn numbers went in.
That also happens to be about the amount I could memorize at a given time. So I would pick a block look at a neighboring block memorize it go back and tick off those numbers and repeat. I play chess both over the board and online and I find memorizing chess positions to be way easier. 1 there are 17 more squares in sudoku. 2 there are way more blank squares in chess. 3 humans are bad with memorizing numbers. So I think doing a soduku from memory would be like super human.
It’s a hard project sudoku is inherently visual
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