UX design in knitting patterns
Big companies spend a lot of money investing in user experience. In the world of software development, there is a role called the user experience (UX) designer. According to Glassdoor, UX designers are “responsible for enhancing customer satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure associated with a product in a way that is attractive and convenient for users.”
And with an average salary of $97,500 (with more experienced designers earning possibly up to $157,000 per year), it’s clear this is a highly valuable skill.
Though as an independent knitwear designer you may not have the cash to shell out to hire someone to do this sort of work, you can still think about how your pattern layout and instructions impact your users. Remember, happy knitters might be return knitters, and the opposite is true too. If your pattern is confusing and hard to follow, knitters may never buy from you again because they remembered how frustrating it was the first time.
I’ll give a few personal examples of things that have annoyed me when knitting patterns.
Important instructions in places that don’t make sense. I have ADHD, I’m not gonna read the full pattern in advance. Recently I was knitting a pattern and it gave the instructions, said to repeat them to a specified number of inches (this was basically knitting most of the rest of the pattern), and THEN it gave a note on something that was supposed to be happening during those repeated rows.
Another is when there is just a huge section of notes that I’m supposed to magically remember later. Most of the things I knit take me months to complete. If I read something in the pattern details now, I’m not going to remember it in a few weeks when I go to knit that part of the pattern.
One pattern had details on what size the sample was and the ease on the body, and that was in the yarn section. Where do I want to know that information? In the sizing section where I’m actually picking out my size!
These are just a few of the examples that have annoyed me, but there are so many more to choose from. Part of my role as a tech editor is to help you work through some of these issues, but my goal here is to help you get there on your own before it’s my turn to look at the pattern.
Let’s go back to UX designers. According to Coursera, these are the tasks and responsibilities of a UX designers:
Understand the user and what problem you’re trying to solve for them
Conduct user research to understand their needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points. This can be accomplished through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and A/B testing.
Build user personas based on that research to identify important elements of the product and begin to map out the user flow.
Build out the design using site maps, wireframes, or prototypes.
Conduct user testing to identify problems with the design and develop solutions.
As I read that list it becomes easy to see how that process can be translated out to knitting design. In step 2, you could look at patterns from designers you love to see what it is about their patterns that you love. Pay attention to how they’ve laid everything out and try to answer the question: why did they do it like this? Thinking critically about other designers’ choices may enable you to think more critically about how to organize your own pattern.
If you have existing patterns in your catalogue, perhaps you can go back through and do this same exercise. Questions to ask yourself include:
Why did I put this here instead of elsewhere in the pattern?
Would this fit better elsewhere?
Is this information necessary?
How can I emphasize a particularly important piece of information?
Is there any prerequisite information needed that is missing?
This could also be a good opportunity to engage with your customers by asking for feedback. You could ask them to answer a brief survey, do Instagram polls about pattern elements in general, etc.
This is also where good test knitting planning comes in. When you’re prepping for a test knit, come up with a good list of questions, like the ones above, asking for specific feedback on the pattern. While testing is a good opportunity to see you pattern knit up by others before you release it, it’s also important to go into it with specific ideas on what sort of feedback you’re looking for.
Don’t just ask testers to “let you know if anything is confusing.” Be specific and you’ll get better and more thoughtful answers. For example:
Were there any stitches in the glossary that need further explanation? Did you have to watch a tutorial on your own or were my instructions sufficient?
Did my instructions for shaping the sleeve cap make sense to you?
Would you have preferred if (this bit of information) was before (this instruction)?
Do I need to provide additional advice on choosing a size?
It’s a lot easier for someone to answer a focused question like that than to try to come up with an answer to a broad question that is just asking if ANYTHING was confusing. Be as specific as possible and you’ll get specific answers.
Even after your pattern is released, you can continue conducting user research on your customers so that your future patterns can be improved. You might have to be a bit of a creep. Check the Ravelry page and Instagram posts of people knitting your pattern and see if they mention anything they struggled with. I commonly see posts of finished objects with captions like “I really had trouble with the heel flap, but once I got past it the rest was easy!”
If you offer pattern support, make a note of every question that comes your way. If someone struggled with something, you could guess there is someone else that is confused but doesn’t want to bother you. Take in that feedback and keep it in a centralized place so that when you go to write your next pattern, you have a list of things to avoid or improve upon. If you see someone has tagged you on Instagram when casting on, it might be worth giving them a follow and following their stories. People are more likely to talk about WIPs in their stories and reserve their grid for photos of finished objects.
