Thread by @wipinsanity

A followup on this retweet of mine, about an open letter from designers to @ravelry.

This letter asked for four things:

https://twitter.com/wipinsanity/status/1287175664140001281?s=20

1. Hire an outside consultant, with no personal investment in the outcome, for feedback on web accessibility. There was an emphasis here that inaccessible user surveys will not give them the information that such a consultant will.

2. Until the new version is KNOWN to no longer be a seizure risk, Classic Ravelry should be the default everywhere.

3. Any changes made to the new version to restore accessibility should be the default, rather than opt-in features.

4. A heartfelt apology needs to be made to the community. There was an emphasis that we are waiting to see evidence that they understand the real physical harm that they caused, how hurtful their responses have been, and how marginalized users have been impacted.

This included an admonishment to stop taking the reporting of issues personally, and stop using sales and statistics to justify the harm being done.

(Really, I thought it was quite an excellent letter.)

The letter was sent around the beginning of August (3rd? 4th? Somewhen around that). What was Ravelry's response?

https://twitter.com/kaysaraahsaraah/status/1291013442485334018?s=20

Signed from "Mary Heather (and Jessica)", they wrote: "Thank you for writing with your concerns and care. I shared your letter with Jessica and we discussed it this morning. We hope that Jessicas (sic) letter last week addressed these concerns...

...and helped share our thoughts behind our decisions and next steps. We will be following up with continued updates on our blog and look forward to continuing this work."

Clearly, the message is that all our concerns should already have been addressed by Jessica's letter - that being the one she wrote on July 30. This one: blog.ravelry.com/a-letter-from-…

And also by their stated future plans in the letter plus and any future updates. At the moment (admittedly only 9 days on from Jessica's letter), there has been one more update, from Mary Heather, dated August 4. This one: blog.ravelry.com/updates-august…

I shall now take a look at these two pieces of communication and compare the content in it to the very clearly stated four requests from the designers' letter.

Item #1: Hire an outside consultant.

Jessica's letter says, ""We have also been searching for a consultant with a specialization in visual web accessibility that we can work with on an ongoing basis...

..., as the people we have spoken with so far were only available temporarily. We are continuing to research, and this is a priority for us."

Also, the August 4 update says: "we have been initiating conversations with some of these additional individuals [folks who do consulting for accessibility in various areas] and other organizations about this work."

So they have been talking to people and trying to find someone, and they state that this is a priority. Nevertheless, no consultant has been hired, so we don't seem to be too close to fulfilling request #1.

Item #2: Classic Ravelry should be the default, not the new design.

Jessica's letter says, "Naturally, some people have wondered why we didn’t roll back to using the Classic site as the default, and of course we seriously considered this option."

She then goes on to say that many Ravelers, including people with disabilities, find the new design more usable; and that the mobile version of the new design is more accessible. Also, some of the harmful effects of the new design are apparently improvements for some people.

Note, though, that she doesn't call them "harmful effects", but "specific elements of the new design that some folks say affect them negatively". So they're sticking to their guns with making the new design the default because it "would not serve the greatest number of Ravelers."

First of all, I want more details here. HOW is the new design more usable? HOW is the mobile version more accessible? WHICH aspects of the new design that harm some are good for others, and HOW? Give us real and specific information, please, @ravelry. Do not generalize.

The reason I'm not satisfied with generalizing is that all Ravelry's behaviour since the redesign was launched has eroded trust. They have suppressed discussion of the accessibility problems on Ravelry...

... and they actively attempted to mislead their audience with statistics and platitudes. Therefore, these vague examples are NOT BELIEVABLE without details.

Secondly, THIS IS NOT JUST A NUMBERS GAME. You CANNOT say (and I'm totally inventing numbers here, I don't have real counts) that dozens of people having problems < thousands of people seeing improvement, when the problems PHYSICALLY HARM and the improvements are simply GOOD.

Attention @ravelry, this is a very key point: When PHYSICAL HARM is occurring, "serving the greatest number of Ravelers" is a decision factor that should be ABANDONED.

Anyway, result: They have refused to meet request #2 from the designers' letter.

Item #3: Any changes made to the new version to restore accessibility should be the default, not opt-in.

This was not at all addressed in Jessica's letter that I can see (although she does seem very proud of the customization options that they've introduced so far; no mention of them becoming defaults, though). And no mention whatsoever in the August 4 update.

Result: They seem to be ignoring request #3 in the designers' letter.

Item #4: A heartfelt apology, INCLUDING a statement of understanding of the physical harm done, the hurtfulness of their behaviour, and the negative impact on marginalized areas of the community.

Jessica's letter DID contain a lot of apology. And it did seem heartfelt (although of course this is subjective, YMMV). However, we need to examine what the apology was FOR.

She says:
- "I first would like to apologize for any stress and uncertainty that the Ravelry site redesign has caused in what is already a difficult year"
- "I am so sorry that our actions, or inactions, have made anyone in the community feel unheard."

And:
- "We acknowledge that our responses up to this point have been insufficient."
- "It pains the whole team and myself that Ravelry, which we know is a source of comfort to many, caused any additional anxiety to anyone at all."

And:
- "I know it has taken so long for me to get to this letter and I sincerely apologize for the delay."

And:
- "With regard to tweets and emails sent by Cassidy, we would like to make clear they do not reflect the opinions and professional intentions of the Ravelry team, or the way we think about what people are experiencing."

And:
- "she [Cassidy] does understand that this is no excuse and that the emails that she wrote were hurtful. She is ashamed and sincerely sorry."
- "We hear, understand, and believe that the New site is still not working for some."

And:
- "I know that we have made mistakes and I am so sorry that we have made anyone feel unwelcome on Ravelry since June."

There is no mention in any of this of the physical harm done. Rather, it has been extremely watered down, to "not working for some". Actually, there's a lot of watered-down language being used here, such as "made anyone feel unwelcome".

There is no specific acknowledgement that they have had a negative impact on marginalized sections of the community.

There is a fair bit of acknowledgement of the hurtfulness of their behaviour, but given how much was missed/minimized in the apology, I suspect that they don't really understand WHAT exactly they did that was hurtful. If that's true, then they could easily do it again.

Result: Request #4 from the designers' letter has not been met, either.

So I'll give them a half-point for item #1 because they're talking to consultants and calling it a priority; zero for items #2 and #3, and a quarter-point for item #4.

That's 0.75 out of 4.

So @ravelry, when you responded, "We hope that Jessicas (sic) letter last week addressed these concerns"?

(Which seems to carry with it the implication that this is the only answer we're going to get and you expect us to be happy with it?)

Objectively: No, it did not.

If you were hoping designers would go back to selling and advertising on, and directing traffic to, and favourably speaking of, Ravelry? That's a hard no from this designer, at least.

@ravelry, I've lost count of how many times I've written this since mid-June, but DO BETTER.

Oh, uh, whoops (red face), major omission from the beginning of this whole thread: #RavelryAccessibility