Accessibility part one

 In June, the crafting platform rav introduced a new format. This format immediately caused many (hundreds, thousands?) rav users to experience severe eye strain, eye pain, migraine headaches, regular headaches, vertigo and seizures. After a few days of discussion, rav put the "classic" view in as an alternative, providing you could tolerate the new site and make the selection. The "classic" also caused problems, not as severe, but significant eye strain and headaches are common. Worse yet, screen readers did not work with the new rav. They had never been great with old rav, but they were worse with new rav.

Nearly two months later and rav denies the pain and suffering it has caused, threatens to remove "classic", shuts down all discussions on the topic on the main discussion boards, and shows that rav does not care about accessibility at all. They say rav is more accessible than ever.

I have always written accessible patterns for people who are blind or have print challenges. I do this because I need to see the patterns in this way. About a year and a half ago I began working with a group on rav called Accessible Patterns. Rav had created a search tag called Low Vision Accessible, but had failed to define the search parameters. I worked with rav based on the discussions in the group, and created a minimum standard for the search. 

Rav failed to put the standard into place until nearly a year after they agreed to it, during which time I followed each pattern using the search tag, contacted the designers and made sure the tag was used correctly and information about what made the pattern accessible was in the pattern notes.

Rav had also agreed to implement a screen reader search tag, but never added it. They would not agree to add search tags for press braille, digital braille and digital audio books, which would have allowed me to add the books from BARD, The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Challenged into the pattern database. 

When rav showed it did not care about accessibility, I was not surprised. They had been showing this was how they felt long before the new rav. 

More to come.