Playing Paperclip with a screen reader
Paperclip is a free daily trading puzzle, built screen-reader-first. I’m blind and play it every day with VoiceOver, so every part of the game is real text: headings, lists and buttons. Nothing depends on seeing the screen or hearing a sound.
How the page is laid out
The puzzle is in this order, and each part starts with a heading, so you can jump between them with your screen reader’s heading keys:
- Goal: today’s prize and the length of the shortest route.
- Your bag: what you’re holding. You start with a red paperclip.
- Market: one button for each trader, then Undo last trade and Start over.
- More puzzles: practice, Expert markets and the archive.
- Prize shelf: your streaks, badges and the prizes you’ve won.
To move by heading, press H in browse mode with NVDA or JAWS. With VoiceOver on a Mac, press VO-Command-H, or use the rotor. On an iPhone, set the rotor to Headings and swipe down.
Making a trade
Each trader is a single button that tells you everything in one sentence: who they are, what they give, what they want, and whether you can trade now. For example:
The florist. Gives a ribbon. Wants a red paperclip. Ready to trade.
Press the button to trade: Enter or Space on a keyboard, or double-tap on a phone. Paperclip then tells you what you gave, what you got, what’s in your bag, and who you can trade with next. Your place stays on that trader, so you never lose your spot.
- Choose “Can trade now”, just after the Market heading, to list only the traders who want something you have.
- If a trade makes the prize impossible to reach, Paperclip says so straight away. Undo last trade takes it back.
- When you win, you hear your result and land on it, ready to copy and share.
Keyboard, touch and sound
- Everything works with the keyboard alone: Tab and Shift-Tab to move, Enter or Space to press.
- On phones it works with touch, with or without a screen reader.
- There’s no timer and nothing to drag.
- Sounds, and the little vibrations on phones, are optional and never tell you anything the words don’t. Turn them off with the Sound and Vibration switches at the top.
- Paperclip follows your system’s reduced motion, dark mode and text size settings.
Screen readers and browsers
I test every change with VoiceOver in Safari. Paperclip uses only standard HTML and ARIA, which NVDA, JAWS, Narrator and TalkBack all support. If something reads oddly with your screen reader or browser, please tell me which ones you use, and I’ll fix it.