Card games for seniors with low vision, and what big cards really means

My Grandma is nearly blind, and for a while she led our local association for the blind, so she knows exactly what most screens get wrong. Every card, word and button in Caravita had to pass her test first. If you are looking for a card game for a parent or grandparent with low vision, this is the list of what to look for, because it is the list she gave me.

One switch before the first card. On the first launch the game asks: “Make the game easier to see and use?” One answer, and the text grows, the numbers fill the cards, and the whole game slows to her pace. Every setting can be changed later, one by one, but she should never have to find them to start.

A font drawn for low vision. The reading font is Atkinson Hyperlegible, made by the Braille Institute so that no letter can pass for another. The game’s own pixel font is there too, for those who like it.

Text size up to 150 percent, and every screen makes room for it instead of cutting words off.

Big numbers on the cards. The setting is called “Cards: Big”: one large number fills each card instead of small corners and pips. Readable from across the room.

Contrast, greyscale, colour-blind modes. Pure white on a dark table or near-black on a light one; the whole table in grey for eyes that prefer no colour; three colour-blind modes, and the outlines change colour to suit each.

Green means one thing. Hint outlines every card she can play in green, and nothing else in the game is ever green.

Her hands, too. Tap a card, then tap where it goes, so nothing has to be dragged. A setting that ignores a shaky second tap. Pop-ups that wait until she has read them. A slow game speed.

None of this is a mode bolted on. It is the game. The Reading settings on the first page are the real ones, on the real cards, so you can try them before she does.