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Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
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2 Apr, 106 tweets, 26 min read
"Isn't #RavelryAccessibility fixed now? Because doesn't @ravelry know a lot about accessibility? And anyway, can't everyone just use a Stylish skin or something?" - a thread in multiple parts.

Short answer: No, no, and no.
Long answer (VERY long answer, actually - sorry!): #NuRav had a bunch of different problems when it first launched. Some of them were improved or fixed. But many - including the ones which cause physical harm - were not.
Some of these problems do resolve if you put one of the available third-party skins over top of them (although how newcomers to Ravelry will know they should do this I've no idea, and shouldn't a website work by itself without outside help?). But for many people, they don't.
And Ravelry has demonstrated time and again that they don't know about accessibility. They don't have a handle on basic principles, they don't think about it as being an essential part of their work, and they don't know how to execute accessibility properly. Read on for details.
PART 1: STUFF THAT MOVES

To begin with, when the redesign was first launched, it contained a lot of motion. The very first screen, for example - the login page - by default, had an animated graphic of animals in floating hot air balloons that was impossible to stop.
Now, Ravelry did discontinue the login screen animation pretty quickly post-launch, and that's now the default behaviour, which is great. They also slowed the animation's speed, and installed a play/pause button to activate/stop it.
Although, at one point in their forums, a staff member stated that the animation they launched "followed best practices for motion". I posted back and pointed out that it did not, since there was no play/pause button. w3.org/WAI/tutorials/…
AFTER that, they instituted a play/pause button. So that's one example of their lack of accessibility expertise.

Also, the pause button does not truly pause the animation; it seems instead to replace it with a static image that's identical to the first frame of the animation.
So unless you HAPPEN to pause the looping animation at the same frame as it starts the loop with, the imagery will 'leap' to a different position to "pause", which is a jarring visual experience. That indicates that Ravelry staff don't understand issues with motion on a site.
In other motion issues with the redesign, when you logged in, a rainbow flag with black and brown stripes scrolled across your screen. When you made a design purchase, little yarn balls would bounce around. Etc.
I believe the rainbow flag scrolling has been eliminated, and there are no more bouncy yarn ball animations when you buy a pattern from Ravelry if you're not logged in. (I don't know whether they bounce if you ARE logged in?)
Ravelry settings now include a Reduced Motion option which will disable motion in Ravelry's interface, e.g. "navigation underlines, 'drop out' effects when deleting items, enlarging effects used when expanding collapsed boxes, and sliding navigation menus on mobile view."
(As per their September 29 blog post.)

But motion is the default experience. Meaning that you have to potentially experience motion on the site BEFORE you can turn it off.
So yes, a number of motion issues have been fixed, and that's really important. But if there was accessibility expertise on-staff, they wouldn't have happened in the first place. It's also troubling that Ravelry posted untrue information about accessibility and their compliance.
The load methods used by the site also apparently lead to motion issues (tap through the images in the link until you get to the stories). instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0…
I have also seen the explanation (on a private discussion forum, so no link possible) that Ravelry isn't assembling their query answers before sending them back to users, which is apparently bad coding practice.
Also on the same discussion forum, it was stated that the animations for things like forum post reactions aren't written correctly.

These kinds of motion issues seem too fundamental to be fixed by overlaying a different skin. A skin wouldn't change how a site loads in its code?
Some users also report...
...a flickering effect...
...in the user interface...
...which apparently has gotten worse recently.

End of Part 1.

PART 2: THE NEW VISUALS

Another big accessibility issue with #NuRav is that the design choices they made are not accessibility-compliant.
Not surprising, since Ravelry indicated in their June 26 blog post that they didn't bother thinking about accessibility when it came to designing the site's new visuals.
And this is just wrong. Accessibility ABSOLUTELY comes into play at the designing-visuals stage. To not understand that this is the case displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the principles of accessibility. w3.org/WAI/tips/desig…
I found the font selected for the redesign very hard to read. I screenshotted the text, zoomed in on the screenshot, and discovered that the individual pixels in the text were a bunch of different rainbow colours, so no wonder. Warning: #NuRav screenshots:
This is probably due to the font family that was selected, and not with Ravelry's code, because when they pointed me to the font's webpage, I had the same problem reading text done in the smaller sizes (although that's done with images and not real text).
Ravelry has since added the option to change the font that displays for you on the site, but I believe their selected font is still the default experience? Meaning that you have to experience it before you can change it.
But Ravelry appears to have changed font colours in some spots throughout the site - I did a comparison of the same Ravelry page (while logged out) in November (via the Wayback machine) vs. now and it does read better now. (Note: I may have a Herdwick cookie set.)
Another design issue reported by users: too much whitespace, making things too bright; so, issues like overly-large linespacing...
...too much padding/margins, needing to use a softer background colour instead of pure white, etc. instagram.com/p/CNFakSoJ_eC/
Other design choices contributing to the too-bright impact of the page include the choice of the cyan colour in their palette, which is too harsh. (Warning: #NuRav screenshots in images 3 and 4 of this link)
Also it seems...
...that there were many...
...poor design choices...
...in general, especially...
...the drop shadows...
...which also appear on automated emails, not just the website.
In short:
Whether all this completely explains the negative impacts of the visuals on people's physical health is unknown. That's been a mystery for a while. There are a number of efforts underway to try and figure this out.
One theory is that the combination of the layout and the colours is creating an effect like chromostereopsis, causing the site to be perceived as a three-dimensional object rather than a two-dimensional one.
Some polls have been conducted to explore this. Poll #1:
Poll #2:
@cefryber then conducted her own Twitter poll to see if there was a correlation between being negatively affected by Ravelry's redesign and needing corrective lenses.
She is continuing to try and gather data about reactions to the new design; this survey will run until sometime in early April, I believe:
One recent theory about colour shifting due to patched-together CSS has gotten a lot of attention, but has also been described by multiple developers as bogus, in terms of how CSS actually works. So this theory may be a misunderstanding or a hoax; that has yet to play itself out.
However...
...it has prompted...
...multiple developers/folks who work with CSS...
...to talk...
...about what...
...might be...
...happening.
And it seems another root cause is the insufficient size of Ravelry's staff and the lack of proper internal processes for code rollout.
Also the CSS code apparently could use a serious cleanup.
All this aside, Ravelry HAS been working on fixing some of their design problems, in addition to the font colour changes already mentioned. They made some visual changes to the forums, which did help at least some users: "beautiful, have eliminated most of my nystagmus response."
They've added some accessibility features for users in addition to font selection: a live update notification for screenreaders for when users get new Ravelry messages (not visuals-related, but still); and the "Herdwick" mode: a kind of toned-down version of the new design.
This has helped some people cope with the site, but not all. While Herdwick does the trick for some, many are still reporting vertigo...
...eye strain...
...and headaches.
Ravelry also recently launched a "dark mode" for their site. However, it does not seem to follow all best practices for dark modes. material.io/design/color/d…
For example, one best practice is to use dark grey (as opposed to black), "to express elevation and space in an environment with a wider range of depth." Ravelry? Uses, in their own words on their March 24 blog post, "a dark grey-blue".
Another best practice is to desaturate colours: "Saturated colors also produce optical vibrations against a dark background, which can induce eye strain."
Ravelry's dark mode version of their login screen image turned the balloons into what I can only describe as neon cornflower. Definitely not desaturated. (Warning: #NuRav screenshot at link)
Now, there certainly are...
...people...
...who are helped (hooray!!!)...
...by the dark mode...
...but there are also...
...people...
...even folks...
...who...
...really like...
...dark modes in general...
...who aren't.

Which takes us back to Ravelry not following dark mode best practices; another example of their lack of accessibility expertise.

End of Part 2.
PART 3: OTHER ISSUES

When #NuRav launched, screenreader users...
...either stopped being able...
...to use the site at all...
...or found the experience...
...much worse.

I believe this fundamental problem has since been fixed? But there is no way that it should EVER have made it to the live site.
And apparently the new site is still not a terrific experience for screenreader users.
Another thing that started when the new design launched was Ravelry using images for bullet points instead of actual bullet points. Accessibility-wise, the HTML code for native bullet points is key for many users who use assistive accessibility technology. accessiblewebsiteservices.com/tag/how-to-cre…
It took Ravelry three and a half months (September 29) to stop doing this in their blog posts. I don't know whether they've also stopped doing it or not in other places? But the fact that they did it to begin with indicates, again, a lack of accessibility knowledge.
In other accessibility fixes, at some point after the redesign was launched, Ravelry did add a 'skip to content' feature in the header for keyboard navigation users. However, this feature only appears after the SECOND tab stroke you make on the page, as opposed to the first.
I have no idea why they've done it this way; WCAG 2.0 says it should be the first focusable control on the page. More indications of a lack of accessibility expertise on-staff. w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECH…
This means that your average keyboard navigation user is going to tab once, not see a skip-to-content experience, assume there ISN'T one, and continue tabbing, probably super-fast, thus possibly MISSING the skip-to-content option when it happens, and have to tab back. (Annoying.)
And overall, Ravelry fails a number of WCAG 2.0 compliance standards. Now, although free automatic checkers are unlikely to give a complete picture of what's happening, we can still get an idea with tools like Powermapper... try.powermapper.com/demo/Report/db…
...or aCe (warning: this link contains views of Ravelry's new design). ace.accessibe.com/utm_source=o&u…
So if Ravelry says that they're accessibility-compliant - as has been seen with this and other issues upthread (e.g. motion) - one has to be skeptical of such a statement.

And speaking of testing, that's another crucial area of accessibility which Ravelry has not done well with.
When you read their June 19 and June 26 blog posts, it is clear that they only started automated testing for accessibility on their redesign project at the last minute.
Moreover, exclusive reliance on automated accessibility testing is insufficient for a large website that serves millions of people. boia.org/blog/is-automa…
Now, Ravelry did do beta-testing on their redesign, and they've also implemented a "swatching" feature on their site since the redesign, to help them gather feedback about new features.
However, beta-testing is a) not the same as manual accessibility testing, and b) pointless if you're not going to actually listen to the people who report problems.
It's also important...
...to do testing properly...
...and with integrity.
Moreover, since the redesign, Ravelry appears to have solicited testing and feedback in such a way as to minimize the odds of hearing from people who are negatively affected by the new design.
Their various surveys have been problematic, such as only being available on Ravelry (i.e., if the new design bothered you, you couldn't participate in a survey to tell them about it). knitswhereitsat.com/carriecraftgee…
Their swatching feature, which exists "to invite broader groups of Ravelers to participate in testing...so that we can make sure each new feature works well and is polished before we release it sitewide", is similarly restricted to folks who can already use the new design.
Additionally, they've been encouraging people recently to use the 'submit feedback' link in the profile menu dropdown to communicate with them about any issues; but - at least while the Classic toggle was available - this link did not EXIST in the Classic experience.
Maybe the theory was, someone using Classic wouldn't have feedback about the new design because they're not using it? But think: People used Classic for a REASON. They're the most likely TO have problems with the new design, and should've been able to tell someone about them.
And there are other general indications that the Ravelry staff do not possess accessibility experience. Statements like this, from their June 26 blog post: "There is no magic bullet for designing websites to accommodate the wide range of vestibular disorders and visual needs...
...and we are being as thoughtful as possible in our approach and research in order to make the best decisions we can to help the most people."

Meaning: Accessibility is impossible to achieve, so some people are just going to have to lose out.
Or this, from co-founder Jessica's July 30 letter: "we came to the conclusion that switching back to Classic Ravelry would not serve the greatest number of Ravelers."
Meaning: It's okay to physically harm a subset of our users if a LARGER subset likes the changes.

Which is not okay. Even if you're helping more people than you're harming, if you find you're harming people, you must first STOP HARMING PEOPLE. That's the accessibility priority.
The founders also made numerous statements in a recent @NewYorker article, completely dismissing the harm that their inexpertise has caused to thousands of people, and disclaiming their own responsibility.
In conclusion:
- YES, many serious and harmful problems with the site still exist
- NO, the staff don't know (or care, apparently) much about accessibility
- YES, there are a number of things that may help people use the new design, but
- NO, they do not work for everyone

Fin.

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More from @wipinsanity

Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
5 Apr
"Isn't this accessibility thing just a conspiracy among white supremacist types who are ticked off that Ravelry banned support of Trump to make the site a safe space?" - a thread:
See also, related:
Short answer: No.
Read 26 tweets
Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
8 Aug 20
A followup on this retweet of mine, about an open letter from designers to @ravelry.

This letter asked for four things:
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.
Read 41 tweets
Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
24 Jul 20
On the topic of financial accessibility in knitting, here's a thread with some tricks for knitting on the cheap that I've picked up over the years, paired with links to higher-priced products from small businesses, for those who do have the money to spend. #NoShame #SkintVsMint
Stitch markers

SKINT: There are tons of things you can use, e.g.
- cross-sections of straws
- your kids' old Rainbow Loom elastics
- safety pins
- slip knots in scrap bits of yarn

MINT: Check out these hand-sculpted stitch markers: whitneymarieanderson.com/collections/st…
Yarn bobbins

SKINT:
- those little tabs that close up bread bags work great for thin yarns
- a Google search for 'make yarn butterfly' will yield tutorials for how to hand-wind good bobbins

MINT: I found these sweet animal-shaped wooden yarn bobbins: etsy.com/ca/listing/592…
Read 11 tweets
Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
18 Jul 20
:deep, fortifying breath:

(Because this thread is nervous-making for me to write.)

I want to talk cold, hard numbers about what #designers make, because it looks like there are some huge misconceptions floating around out there in the #knitting world.
There is currently a kerfuffle on IG, which has spilled over into Twitter, about the financial accessibility of yarn, because a knitter went to purchase the recommended yarn for the pattern she wanted to make and it was a ghastly high total.
Said knitter called for indie designers (in addition to all the other stuff the market currently expects them to load into their products) to recommend multiple yarns per pattern, customized to different price points, with photos of the finished project in each recommended yarn.
Read 25 tweets
Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
8 Jul 20
I'm so angry that @ravelry is still trying to sweep their #RavelryAccessibility mess under the rug. By all appearances, it looks like they're banking on the fact that the majority of their audience won't know or care why this is so problematic.
So, in an attempt to combat that dependency, I'm going to talk about why accessibility is important, and why you should care about it, even if you're not disabled, even if you don't think you'll ever be disabled, and even if you don't care much about the needs of the disabled.
I'll start by addressing why Ravelry has to even be accessible. I feel like a lot of folks might think "accessibility" is just about making sure blind people can read a website, and blind people don't knit, so what's the big deal?
Read 25 tweets
Kathleen Sperling Profile picture
27 Jun 20
@ravelry The more I read this, the worse it sounds. This is also a one-two gut punch to people with disabilities: framing the staff as hard-working heroes who want to make things accessible but it's rllyrlly tough...
@ravelry ...While simultaneously implying to the unaware, non-disabled audience that the complaints are unreasonable because look how amazing everyone else thinks the new site is.

I'll get more specific.
@ravelry Point one: "There is no magic bullet for designing websites to accommodate the wide range of vestibular disorders and visual needs"
Read 34 tweets

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