The Fairythorn’s Approach to Improve Accessibility in Crafting

This is a discussion about the accessibility on this website and the free knitting, crochet, and sewing patterns it contains.

It’s not really an “accessibility statement.” A formal one of those also exists. But this is a page where any reader can find overall information about the features of the website so they will know if they can access it. If you can’t access it, please get in touch and let me know what the barrier is. The easiest way to do this is to email Ciara@TheFairythorn.ie.

I would emphasize that it is very much a work in progress. This statement is a post where I am chatting with you about what I have done so far. It is not intended as a formal, legalistic, “cover my arse” statement to hide in a footer but rather a very human invitation to conversation and discussion about how we can make craft patterns more accessible. As a disabled designer, I believe deeply in knitting, crochet and crafting being as accessible as possible.

But first, what is accessible about The Fairythorn?

The main features include:

– Use of the “Ally” widget
– Use of Dyslexia Association guidelines and other guidelines on creating easy to access text, and applying these to the tricky example of knitting and crochet patterns.

What is Ally?

This website uses “Ally” by Elementor. The widget is located in the bottom right of the screen. It is a symbol of a person in a blue circle. When clicked, it opens a menu with a significant number of controls that give you power over your experience on this site. These are:

The ability to change text size.

Most devices give you the ability to zoom in to see the text in a larger size, but the problem is that you then can’t see to the end of the sentence. Using this control increases the text size while keeping it in the right place. I would be more likely to use it on my laptop, where small text size is often a problem for me. When using my iPad, I find the iPad controls themselves often sufficient.

Bigger line height.

I love this one; it can greatly increase visibility for me.

Text align.

This can switch text from left-justified to center-justified and back. As a general rule, left-justified text is easiest to see and read, and that is the only formatting for paragraphs you will find on my site.

Readable font.

Using this control switches the font to a clear sans-serif font assessed as being helpful to read. I don’t use it; I find my default font even easier, but it’s good to have the choice.

Greyscale.

Clicking this turns everything black, white, and grey. For some, especially people with some forms of color blindness, this makes it much easier to see. Within my free patterns, all text is black on white, so it only changes the pictures.

Contrast.

Contrast is vitally important for visibility, and different people have different preferences and needs. My free patterns are all black text on a white background by default. But this widget gives readers two additional options, both of which are variants of white text on a black background.

Page structure.

Clicking this brings up an easy-to-see menu for the post and lets the user jump to the section they need. This is particularly advantageous in a pattern where sections need to be worked more than once, and a crafter needs to return to a previous heading.

Hide images.

This replaces pictures and images in the text with blank space, which can be much less intrusive and distracting for some.

Pause animations.

Thank goodness someone made this! The number of sites I have desperately wanted to read but had to leave. However, on the Fairythorn site, you will not encounter any animations; I promise you should have no use for this control.

Highlight links.

I love this one. It causes the links to pop out and be easy to see. When there isn’t enough contrast, I have often struggled to find links on a page.

Other features I use in my knitting and crochet patterns on my blog:

I use particular features in my blog post patterns as a means of making them more accessible. Some of these features are the same as my PDF downloads; others are different and unique to my blog posts. most of these features come from general guidance on making text and websites more accessible. However, a knitting or crochet pattern is a very specific type of web post. And so, the way I apply the advice is specific to the format of a free craft pattern online.

Below are some of the features you can expect from a free online Fairythorn pattern

Text:

All text is black on a white background. The text is true black (Hex code 000000)

The size is slightly larger than standard web text.

All emphasis is created using bold text. Italics, underlining, and block capitals are never used, as these alter word shape and make reading more difficult.

Abbreviations, jargon, and crafting terminology:

In any guide on how to create more accessible text, a strong recommendation is to remove all abbreviations and avoid unnecessary jargon. A problem arises in crafting instructions, which are traditionally written almost entirely in abbreviated, specialized, and precise language. Loose, open-to-interpretation instructions using only common words will never enable a knitter or crocheter to precisely follow detailed instructions to recreate a specific piece of fabric.

If I told you to ‘now finish up and take the stitches off the needles’, someone could not be blamed for following that instruction literally, and removing their knitting needles from live stitches. Total avoidance of precise and specific terminology is impossible for a knitting or crochet pattern. So you can follow along, I must use the precise and specific terminology, and say something like ‘bind off using a stretchy bind off such as a Russian bind off technique’.

Therefore, when I interpret these guidelines for a knitting or crochet pattern, I do not avoid technical and specific language. Instead, I try to assume that at least one reader won’t have encountered this term before, and put extra information in place to help them learn the term, and what it means. (For example, did you know, you can find out about stretchy bind offs in another blog post I have written?)

In short, I do use technical language in my patterns. I try to ensure that each term is explained, and tutorials are linked.

Abbreviations and acronyms for accessibility

Abbreviations, on the other hand, are something I try to avoid. Shortened words are much harder to read than full words. Shortened words require far more intuitive assumptions to be made based on context to understand. ‘St’ could mean ‘stitch’, but it could also mean ‘street’. Abbreviations can exclude people who use screenreader, people who read by word shape, and people who are slower to make assumptions and guesswork based on context.

On the other hand, once abbreviations are learned, they can help and speed up reading of patterns. I would rather read an instruction that says ‘knit to end’ than one that says ‘k to end’, because I can read the first more quickly and confidently. I don’t have to stop and decode. On the other hand, I would rather read an instruction that told me to ‘k2tog’ than one that told me to ‘knit two together’. Why? Because it’s all one action.

So it’s not that abbreviations are always right, or always wrong. They create some barriers, while helping in other ways.

For this reason, I use an experimental style in my free blog post patterns. I do not use any abbreviations. Instead, I write all sentences out in full. However, I use standard abbreviations in my PDF patterns that I sell. The free patterns online are always shorter, simpler patterns, and more appropriate for writing in an abbreviation free style.

Sequencing:

Sequencing can be a specific challenge for some. When writing pattern instructions, I endeavor to put information about sequencing repeats before the instruction itself and repeat it at the end. For example, “The next three rows will be worked 10 times in total.” This may initially seem distracting and unnecessary to some who are familiar with a traditional layout, but such sentences are also easy to skim over and ignore if not useful.

Images, charts, diagrams, and tables:

Some crafters need extra visual information in the form of charts, diagrams, tables, and images. Others can’t access the information contained in them. In my blog posts, I include visual aids and ensure all information contained is fully repeated in the text.

What is not yet as accessible as it should be:

Like life itself, my website is a work in progress. I recently asked an accessibility expert to have a look and give me advice. She replied that “most” features are fantastic but that screen reader access isn’t right yet (I knew that; that’s one of the reasons I was looking for external advice on how to proceed). She also said my navigation is a problem and mentioned something about my “messy front page.” Oh dear, I had just spent a lot of money having a new theme installed, and it was certainly better than before. The thing is, even with the improvements, I knew I didn’t have navigation around the website right yet. I just hadn’t thought of that as an accessibility issue.

Other Issues

Other issues I am aware of include the intrusive requests asking for newsletter sign-ups. (Please, please, please sign up! Oh my gosh, please sign up!!!) OK, joking aside, I need those sign-up options somewhere. But since I installed a new app called “Grow” to start the monetization process, they are suddenly everywhere and very distracting.

The colours on my web page are currently set to true black (hex code 000000) and true white (hex code ffffff). While there are some who benefit from this, there are far more who benefit from a slight colour tone to the background. When I find out how, I will be adjusting the background colour so it has just the faintest hint of pastel shade to it. Not enough to really notice, but enough to reduce glare.

These issues are works in progress. I hope to be able to come back and remove those last few paragraphs sometime soon as I get the problems solved. In the meantime, if there are any other issues, please reach out and let me know. Your feedback is always appreciated.

A few useful links:

[Creating Clear Print and Large Print Documents]
[How to Write Better Website Content for People with Dyslexia] [Guidelines on Inclusive Communications]