Luke and his team wanted to extend this idea to the IKEA website as well. On June 26, a post called “Ravelry’s New Look: a Check-in” addressed readability and accessibility. This chatbox also mimics the in-store experience by providing the same level of customer support as the … Play Pause. People tend to spend a lot of time looking for patterns and instructions: arguably, a less contrasted interface might have worked better. Comments poured in a thread that had more than 7,000 replies. Something like making sure a website is still legible when the font is increased on the user's system, or navigable without clicking or moving a mouse. Because of the nature of the community, even the ones who didn’t experience any problems felt disillusioned. on How Rebranding Cost Ravelry the Trust of Their Community, Design, Digested #7: Biased AI, Phone Addiction and Social Media Manipulation, Design, Digested #8: How a Well-Known Website Lost the Trust of Their Community, Design, Digested #8: How a Well-Known Website Lost the Trust of Their Community – Silvia Maggi Design: Blog, Designing Safer Web Animation For Motion Sensitivity, Designing For Accessibility And Inclusion, Older Users and Web Accessibility: Meeting the Needs of Ageing Web Users, Color accessibility: tools and resources to help you design inclusive products, https://stitchedinthemiddle.com/ravelry-disability-and-accessibility-part-1/, Undoing Toxic Dogmatism; Designing Less; Be More Effective, How the Instagram Navigation Became Convoluted, Design, Digested #14: Elimination of Violence against Women, Get 3 months of free membership to learn UX Design. I forgot. I’m not an assiduous knitter, and I wasn’t using the platform that much, so deleting my account was a natural step. Read it here: https://stitchedinthemiddle.com/ravelry-disability-and-accessibility-part-1/. A website is credible when it engenders trust in its users by being accessible and secure. That the individual designers will not suffer, but will realize how important it is to be aware of and sensitive to the needs of all of their users. Ravelry has turned out to be the rudest and most judgemental website I’ve encountered. My hope is that enough of us will move on, and utilize other platforms to access the designers we love. Last month, the well-know among knitters and crocheters website Ravelry underwent a redesign of the interface. The Ravelry team was slow to respond and, when they did, the community felt like the apology was inadequate. Tools are available to check whether a website is compliant, but again, testing with people gives better and more realistic results. All of this achieved by a small team of only 6! CraftGossip | Start Here | Contact Us | Link to Us | Your Editors | Privacy and affiliate policy. I understand that for someone it’ll be difficult, but I saw a few designers offer now alternative spaces where to buy their patterns. UPDATE: You can now revert to the old Ravelry design. I want to see each of the marginalized peoples get the attention they deserve, and that necessary changes are made for all that need them. The layout elements have dark solid borders, while the background is white. Sign Up Ravelry is a free website for knitters, crocheters, and fiber artists. The Epilepsy Foundation of America issued a warning and indicated what might be the trigger to the seizures. A poor website redesign can have negative consequences on your SEO, while a well-thought-out redesign can have minimal effects on your SEO. The issue with the iPhone’s operating system was clear: the newly introduced animations and the way they were implemented made people with vestibular disorders sick. On June 19, a lengthy blog described how the team picked new colors and icons. A UX Designer with a passion for photography, Silvia writes about design and tech. Based on my understanding, they waited for all pages to be ready before starting to test the new design, a choice that backfired. I am so sorry that our actions, or inactions, have made anyone in the community feel unheard. It was started by Cassidy and Jess Forbes in 2007. These impressive statistics are mentioned to demonstrate how important nailing their recent redesign was. The redesign marks a new phase in the strange and exiting journey that has been Hands Occupied. The survey. Well-known among knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers, Ravelry is a free platform where users can organise and keep track of their projects, network with other people and sell their designs. Usability ensures that a product is effective, efficient and satisfying while it stays accessible. When words are not easy to find, she publishes her pictures. Ravelry published a 35-pages survey. Dec 13, 2017 - Please note, as of 7/23/2020, this pattern is no longer available on Ravelry. I am a member of the Interaction Design Foundation, the world’s largest UX Design learning community. Design, Digested is a newsletter about design, tech, their implication in our lives and the occasional photography work. I discovered a setting in my laptop that allows me the option of dimming the contrast, but Ravelry still bothers my eyes. Hands Occupied and the related work I do enabled me to leave my library career four months ago to pursue a full time design career. It explained everything so well. 04. Six days ago, Ravelry rolled out its new branding and redesign and at Countess Ablaze we have made the decision to strip our Ravelry profile, although we will update with new yarn bases so our beloved customers are not impacted on their project pages, and I’ve gone through our website today to remove all URLs to Ravelry. Stitched In The Middle wrote a very informative post explaining how accessibility helps everyone. Since Ravelry changed its site design last month, making it unusable for some people (and it’s unknown when or if those issues will be fixed) many people are looking for alternatives to Ravelry for buying and selling patterns. The old Ravelry site had quite a dated look. Another facet is watching reactions: a session of half an hour per person would have uncovered many of the current complaints. There is a strong subjective component at play in judging a new design, to the point that it is almost impossible to make everyone happy. For those unaware, in June the yarncraft website Ravelry.com suddenly and without warning rolled out a full site redesign and rebrand. Thank you so much for reading and commenting! If you did, then consider buying me a coffee. The Ravelry community are speaking out against the lack of inclusive design decisions and some people have been experiencing seizures when using the website. Immediately reports of migraines, dizziness, and nausea appeared, as well as reports of seizures. The old version had been around FOREVER, so this redesign is a big deal! To avoid causing problems, I’ve created a separate page to show a couple of screenshots of the redesigned interface. It’s good to see that the community is actively looking for ways to help who cannot access the website. In the absence of early user testing, it might have been a good idea to roll out the redesign in batches, letting people use the new pages and leave feedback. While it’s clear they want to make the redesign work by fixing the problematic areas, the survey was troublesome: It’s a tremendous amount of work. The platform is massive: 800 pages that needed updating one by one. It was a lot of work. I like your summary very much! I am dismantling my account, have left all of the groups, and use only my pages when I am there. She is my first Ravelry friend and I have had so much fun saving and sharing knitting patterns on the platform with her, as well as all the knitters I’ve met over the past decade. Some were enthusiastic, others critical. Ravelry’s response has been to block any discussion of accessibility issues on the website. On 16 June, with no previous announcements, Ravelry rolled out a redesigned interface with new branding. We acknowledge that our responses . Involving users as soon as possible in the process is paramount; we need to gather feedback and iterate to avoid wasting time and money. While the aesthetics of the site could be debated, the new site triggered hundred of migraines in migraine sufferers, and at least eight confirmed seizures in users. They average about 1,000,000 active users every month with a user base of almost 10 million and exponentially growing. This was the hardest part of creating the new look. Ravelry is a community site, an organizational tool, and a yarn & pattern database for knitters and crocheters. Follow the thread on Twitter: Members of our epilepsy community have expressed concerns about content on knitting & crocheting community Ravelry. When I began this blog 6.5 years ago, there was no intention for it to be anything but a hobby, but now it’s my whole job. Our objective for this project was to redesign the user experience of a digital product for 5 years in the future through research and design sprints in teams of 2-3. A few days later, they provided the ability to switch back to the old design, a decision that was greeted with gratitude but also with reports of previously non-existing bugs. That’s probably because Ravelry was always perceived as a community. In response, Ravelry has shut down the “Accessibility” thread in the “For the Love of Ravelry” forum, silencing their neurodiverse user base. While I developed a mild headache after viewing patterns through the new interface, it was the callous disregard for others in the Ravelry response that has left me avoiding the site. Besides the aforementioned physical issues, the fact that screen reader software doesn’t work properly blocked a group of people from accessing the website. The new branding is colourful: there are at least three bright accent colours and two others that are more neutral. After the redesign was unveiled on June 16, the Ravelry team posted twice on its homepage. We acknowledge that our responses up to this point have been insufficient. Evanita hit me up with a message this week after learning how I had experienced a significant problem accessing Ravelry following the website redesign this week. Suddenly, Ravelry wasn’t anymore the inclusive and friendly website everybody knew; it turned out to be a web company like any other. When words are not easy to find, she publishes her pictures. My best friend, who is both a knitter and librarian, told me about it back in 2009. After a group of users experienced physical issues from browsing the redesigned interface, Ravelry lost the trust of their community. With time, users get used to the new: but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Ravelry’s Wikipedia page states that, as of March 2020, they had almost 9 million registered users, and approximately 1 million monthly active users. Your blog post was excellent. In June 2020, Ravelry announced a redesign of their new website. Member of the Interaction Design Foundation. There is no other way to put it: accessibility and usability need to be an integral part of the design since the beginning of a project. The best practice is to conduct user testing sessions, where users are given tasks to complete. Ravelry’s old logo, complete with Pride flag to show their history of inclusion. Username Password. Ravelry is saying all of the right things about inclusivity, but their actions prove they ‘talk the talk’ but don’t know how to (or don’t really care about) walking the walk. But what happened in 2013 when Apple released iOS 7 proves that those reactions are genuine. Learn how your comment data is processed. Ravelry’s disastrous and totally tone deaf manner of updated has put the focus on a diverse and serious group of marginalized users. Acrylic Yarn: The Ultimate Guide for Crafters,…, The Simplest Knit Christmas Tree Skirt Ever, Knitting Pattern – Scourie slouchy beanie Hat, Knit Matching Arm and Leg Warmers for a Fun ’80s Vibe, Free Snowflake Mandala Hand Embroidery Pattern, 25+ Christmas Tree Ornaments Kids Can Make, Wonderful ways to re-purpose doilies for the holidays, 15 Christmas Candy Cane Crafts You Can Make For The Holidays. Look: a Check-in ” addressed readability ravelry website redesign accessibility occasional photography work web! A feeling of belonging and involvement keep your team motivation high and foster a feeling of belonging involvement! Suddenly and without warning rolled out a full site redesign on June 16 the... Cinnamon color for the logo, and i ’ m glad you it! An organizational tool, and utilize other platforms to access the web looking for ways help... Redesign ravelry website redesign, the team should address concerns around accessibility and ensure that the community feel unheard those. 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