How to slide OutBrick bricks with VoiceOver actions

One basic aim is to send bricks home through gates of their own colour. A red brick needs its red gate; reaching a different gate does not fulfil that matching rule. Gates can be on any side of the board. There is no general rule that every brick must travel upwards or that the correct exit is always along the top edge.

OutBrick labels each brick’s colour, shape and position for VoiceOver, and pairs bricks and matching gates with distinct glyphs. Begin by identifying the piece you want to move and locating its destination. Then examine the intervening route. An exit can be close to a brick while still requiring other pieces to move first.

Imagine a matching gate to the right with another brick between it and your selected piece. The immediate problem is the intervening brick. Looking for an upward action will not resolve a route that needs to be cleared sideways. For help locating pieces before choosing actions, read our VoiceOver board-orientation guide.

Since version 5.1, each OutBrick slide action names a distance as well as a direction, such as “Slide right 1 cell” or “Slide up to the end, 3 cells”: the brick travels along the available route and stops where the action says. Listen to the full action name and plan the endpoint of the action you choose. Before committing to a route, consider both whether the brick can start moving and where that movement will end.

A simple imagined example helps. There are several free spaces to the left of a brick, followed by another piece. A slide to the end carries the selected brick along the available space until the other piece stops it; a shorter slide action stops after the number of cells it names. The other piece can therefore be an obstacle or a useful stopping point, depending on your plan.

This makes order important. Moving a blocker away may open an exit, but moving a useful stopping piece too soon may change a later slide. You can consider that sequence before acting. Our guide to untimed puzzle challenge explains the distinction between thinking time and the move allowance; having time to inspect a board does not give you unlimited moves.

Our movement explanation on AppleVis gives this VoiceOver guidance: focus a brick, then swipe up or down to choose among slide-up, slide-down, slide-left and slide-right actions. Listen to the action’s name. The direction of the selecting gesture and the direction named by the action do different jobs.

For example, you may use an upward or downward swipe while choosing the action called slide left. That does not turn the intended move into an upward or downward slide. The action name expresses the movement you are selecting. This distinction answers the original confusion without asking you to infer a brick’s direction from the gesture used to browse its actions.

Kane et al. (2008) separated exploration from activation in a prototype tested by ten screen-reader users on non-game tasks; speed gains came with more errors.

With the standard VoiceOver custom-action gesture, double-tap after choosing the action to perform it, as Apple’s custom-actions guidance explains. Before doing so, confirm the focused brick and intended direction. Afterwards, inspect the changed area and compare the result with your prediction. If the available actions are unclear in your setup, tell us what VoiceOver announces.

Sources1Source 1Kane, S. K., Bigham, J. P., & Wobbrock, J. O. (2008). Slide rule: Making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch interaction techniques. In Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 73–80). Association for Computing Machinery.

If the result differs from your intention, return to the selected piece and check its identity and position. Next check the action you meant to choose, then the space in that direction. Finally, find the matching gate again. This order keeps a navigation problem, an action-selection problem and a puzzle constraint from collapsing into the same frustrating question.

Some routes are blocked because another brick needs to move first. Other uncertainty may come from the touch-exploration defects reported on AppleVis, where a gate or brick could be found by sequential navigation but not under the finger. Do not assume that an area is clear just because nothing was announced there. Those reported defects have their own next-update fix commitments.

Ran et al. (2025) interviewed 32 experienced blind or low-vision mobile players in China; participants asked for accessible tutorials, focus navigation and easier initial setup.

That is useful context for our approach to instructions. A control explanation should help distinguish the state of the board from the way you act on it. You should not need to guess which of those has gone wrong before asking for help.

Sources2Source 2Ran, Z., Li, X., Xiao, Q., Fan, X., Li, F. M., Wang, Y., & Lu, Z. (2025). How users who are blind or low vision play mobile games: Perceptions, challenges, and strategies. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–18). Association for Computing Machinery.

The tutorial question was accompanied by another player’s report that several mechanics arrived together and the move allowance felt difficult to meet. We agreed that the opening needed a gentler introduction. We have promised short teaching cards when an idea first appears, introductory boards that teach one idea at a time, and more moves on early boards in the next update.

As of 2 October 2026, those teaching changes remain in progress for the next update. We are also redesigning every level, beginning with the early villages, with a commitment to keep play available through VoiceOver. The aim is a starting point that lets you build confidence in the rules.

Andrade et al. (2019) surveyed 17 gamers with visual impairment and interviewed six; participants valued rich play, while describing tensions between complexity and accessibility.

Our design response is to explain a rule before combining it with others. Learning what stops a brick, finding a matching gate and managing several blockers can each be satisfying. Introducing them clearly should leave room for the player to discover a solution rather than wonder what the controls mean.

Sources3Source 3Andrade, R., Rogerson, M. J., Waycott, J., Baker, S., & Vetere, F. (2019). Playing blind: Revealing the world of gamers with visual impairment. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–14). Association for Computing Machinery.

Try naming the purpose of your next move in a short sentence: “This clears the route to the gate,” or “This creates a stopping point.” If you cannot yet predict what the slide will do, revisit the relevant pieces before acting. You can learn one relationship at a time instead of trying to hold the entire solution in mind.

Ryan et al. (2006) associated perceived competence and autonomy with enjoyment across four gaming studies; those associations do not establish the effect of any particular interface.

Research gives us useful questions about choice and understanding; your experience of an actual board tells us where to concentrate the work. Visit our accessibility information for the broader feature overview, or use the contact form with the level, chosen direction and announcement that left you uncertain. A clear report can begin with a single move.

Sources4Source 4Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and Emotion, 30(4), 344–360.