UnCubed®

Accessibility

The app does not show anything by colour alone, every sentence the phone reads aloud is also on the screen, and the pace is yours. Each of these is in the app, as a setting or on its own, and the pictures below are drawn by the app’s own code.

3 Built-in Palettes

The same scrambled puzzle in each. In Standard, letters on the stickers are optional, and on in the picture here; in Colourblind they are always on; in Mono they are shapes instead of letters, and always on.

  • A scrambled cube in the Standard palette: white, yellow, red, orange, green and blue stickers, each with its initial letter.
    StandardThe colours most puzzles are made in, with letters off or on.
  • The same scrambled cube in the Colourblind palette: pink, brown, teal, yellow, white and blue stickers, each with its initial letter.
    Colourblind3 lightness bands across a warm and cool axis, because under dichromacy about 2 perceptual dimensions survive. Letters are part of the palette, not a second setting.
  • The same scrambled cube in the Mono palette: 6 greys, each sticker carrying a shape: a ring, disc, triangle, cross, diamond or bar.
    Mono6 greys on a lightness ladder, each with its own shape. It does not depend on colour vision at all.

Settings › Colours. Letters are a row of their own, Settings › Letters on the colours, which Colourblind and Mono hold on.

Your Puzzle’s Own Colours: Kept Apart from Each Other

Puzzles are sold in every colour scheme there is. Set each side to the colour your puzzle actually is, side by side, and those are the words used for the rest of the steps. There are 25 named colours to choose from rather than a colour wheel, because every colour is spoken aloud and a wheel produces colours that do not have a name.

A colour you cannot tell apart from one you have already used is greyed out and cannot be chosen. The app compares the 2 the way eyes do, in CIELAB through ΔE2000, and refuses anything closer than 12, so silver greys out once white is taken, and gold once yellow is. A greyed swatch keeps its place in the grid, carries a diagonal slash as well as its dimming, and tells VoiceOver why: “Too close to a colour already on this puzzle”.

Input › Your colours, from the square at the end of the colour row. On the 3×3 you rename its 6 colour words instead: “cream” for white, say.

The colour grid with 25 named swatches. White, yellow, red, orange and green are greyed and slashed because other sides have them; silver and gold are greyed too, being too close to white and yellow. Blue is ringed as this side's colour.
5 sides already set, and the sixth being chosen. 7 swatches are out: 5 taken, and silver and gold for being too close to them.

Palettes the Rule Accepts and Palettes It Refuses

6 colours for a puzzle with 6 sides, put through the app’s own rule; a puzzle with 4 sides is checked the same way. The number under each is the closest pair in it: anything under 12 is refused.

Accepted

  • A scrambled 2×2 in red, green, black, gold, white and orange.

    Pan-African

    Accepted

    Red, green, black, gold, white, orange. Closest pair red and orange, 22.96.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in purple, pink, lavender, white, sky blue and blue.

    Trans Pride

    Accepted

    Purple, pink, lavender, white, sky, blue. The flag’s light blue is sky here, and its navy is blue. Closest pair purple and blue, 16.88.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in cream, pink, lavender, sky blue, mint and coral.

    Pastels

    Accepted

    Cream, pink, lavender, sky, mint, coral. Closest pair pink and lavender, 20.66.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in red, yellow, blue, black, white and grey.

    Bauhaus

    Accepted

    Red, yellow, blue, black, white, grey. Closest pair white and grey, 26.65.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in brown, olive, orange, gold, crimson and cream.

    Autumn

    Accepted

    Brown, olive, orange, gold, crimson, cream. Closest pair gold and cream, 21.24.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in pink, lime, cyan, violet, yellow and black.

    Neon

    Accepted

    Pink, lime, cyan, violet, yellow, black. The colours do not include amber, so amber is yellow here. Closest pair pink and violet, 23.47.

Refused

  • A scrambled 2×2 in white, silver, sky blue, blue, lavender and grey, in which the white and silver sides are hard to tell apart.

    Winter

    Refused

    White, silver, sky, blue, lavender, grey. White and silver are 11.35 apart, so whichever you set second is greyed out. Grey instead of silver is accepted.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in yellow, gold, brown, olive, green and cream, in which the yellow and gold sides are hard to tell apart.

    Sunflower

    Refused

    Yellow, gold, brown, olive, green, cream. Yellow and gold are 10.99 apart. Drop one of them and the other 5 stand.

  • A scrambled 2×2 in white, silver, gold, yellow, black and grey, in which 2 pairs of sides are hard to tell apart.

    Metals

    Refused

    White, silver, gold, yellow, black and grey: 2 close pairs at once, white with silver and gold with yellow. 4 of the 6 grey out.

Every Step Spoken and Every Spoken Step Written

  • Speak each step

    The instruction is read aloud in plain English. It is off by default, and on from the first launch if VoiceOver is running.

    Settings › Speak each step

  • The voice is yours to pick

    Any voice installed on your phone, with the Enhanced and Premium ones marked, and a note saying where more are downloaded.

    Settings › Voice

  • 5 speeds

    0.5× to 1.5×, separate from your system speech rate, governing the spoken pace and the animation together, because they are the same thing.

    Settings › Speed

  • Move letters are optional both ways

    Every move is said in words, such as “Turn the right-hand face towards you”. One switch adds the move under the words as the short letter puzzle fans write it down with, and another says that letter aloud as well.

    Settings › Show the move on screen and Say each move aloud

Both Hands Stay on the Puzzle

  • Tap

    The default: a step waits until you press the button, however long that is.

    Options › Moving to the Next Step

  • On a timer

    A wait you set, counted per turn, so a step with 4 turns waits 4 times as long as a single turn.

    Settings › Seconds for Each Turn

  • Say “next”

    It also hears “back” and “again”. Recognition happens on your phone; if your phone cannot do that offline in your language, the app refuses to listen rather than sending audio anywhere, and says so.

    Options › Moving to the Next Step

Text at the Largest Accessibility Sizes

The step card at the default size, and at the largest accessibility size. The card grows with the text rather than clipping it, and at these sizes controls that sat side by side stack instead.

  • The step card at the default text size: the bold heading Corner twist and 3 sentences of explanation under it.
    Default“Corner twist”, with its reason under it.
  • The same step card at the largest accessibility text size, the words far larger and the card grown to hold them. The picture is cut off at the bottom of the card.
    Largest accessibility sizeThe same words, all of them shown in full. The picture stops short of the card’s foot.

Motion with Touch and Contrast

  • Reduce Motion

    The system setting is honoured: looping animation becomes still frames, and the movement between screens is cut.

    iOS Settings › Accessibility

  • Animation: your choice

    Repeat, Once or Still. With Reduce Motion on, Repeat becomes Still, and the other 2 stay as you set them.

    Settings › Animation

  • Feel each turn

    A tap you can feel as a step lands. On by default, and one switch turns off every haptic in the app.

    Settings › Feel each turn

  • Increase Contrast

    Turns the sticker labels on wherever they were off, and draws the puzzle’s lines a quarter heavier.

    iOS Settings › Accessibility

  • Reduce Transparency

    The dimmed backdrop behind a panel becomes solid instead of blurred.

    iOS Settings › Accessibility

  • Dark or light or match iOS

    3 choices, and matching iOS is the default.

    Settings › Appearance

Low Stimulation

One switch, Keep things calm: each step’s turn plays once and the voice says its first line. The phone stays still and races hide their clock. The rest of each step stays written on the screen.

Settings › Low Stimulation

VoiceOver

Controls are labelled and grouped, values are spoken as what they will do rather than as numbers, panels can be dismissed with the escape gesture, and the dial carries a rotor of the puzzles. Decorative drawings are hidden from it. Every sentence the app speaks aloud is also written on the screen, so the voice is not the only way to get an instruction.

What Is Not There

Said plainly, because a list of features is easier to trust beside one of absences. The app does not have a left-handed or right-handed layout setting; the main action sits at the bottom of the screen for one-handed use, and that is all. Captions are not a separate feature: the written step is always on the screen instead. And Low Stimulation calms what moves, buzzes and speaks, but it does not change the layout or take anything written off the screen.

If something here does not work for you, that is a bug and it goes to the front of the queue. Tell us, or write to support@uncubed.app.