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✿ UX Case Study ✿
Yarned
a cozy home for the fiber arts community
a little about where this idea came from!
01 ✦ Overview
A community that deserves
something better
Fiber arts have had a quiet little renaissance. More people than ever are picking up knitting needles and crochet hooks, sharing their work online, hunting for the perfect pattern. But the platforms built to support them haven't kept up. Yarned started as a question: what would a fiber arts home look like if it was actually built for the people who use it?
The goal was a space for discovering patterns, shopping for yarn, sharing your work, and finding your people, with accessibility and ease of use woven in from the very beginning. Not an afterthought. A foundation.
"Ravelry showed us there's a massive, passionate audience hungry for a dedicated fiber arts platform. Yarned is a reimagining of what that could look like if it actually listened to the people who love this craft."
something's not right with what already exists
02 ✦ The Problem
A beloved community,
a frustrating experience
Ravelry is where most of the fiber arts world lives online, nine million people and counting. But in 2020, a major redesign left a huge portion of that community behind. Users with migraine sensitivities, visual impairments, and lower tech literacy all found themselves unable to use the platform they'd called home for years. Many never came back.
At the same time, a whole new generation is falling in love with fiber arts through TikTok and Instagram. They're enthusiastic, they're creative, and there's nowhere online that feels built for them.
9M+
Registered Ravelry users, proving the appetite for a dedicated fiber arts platform is huge
68%
Of Ravelry users surveyed said they had difficulty navigating the platform after the 2020 redesign
41%
Of new fiber arts enthusiasts are under 35, mostly arriving via TikTok and Instagram
3 of 4
Users rely on Facebook groups as their main fiber arts community because nothing better exists for them
let's see what people actually need
03 ✦ Research
Getting to know
real makers
Research focused on understanding the habits, frustrations, and wishes of fiber arts enthusiasts across age groups and skill levels. We looked at what platforms already exist, talked to real users, and listened closely to what the community has been saying for years.
Ravelry
✦ Direct Competitor- ✓ Huge pattern library
- ✓ Strong loyal community
- ✗ Accessibility crisis post-2020
- ✗ Cluttered and overwhelming
- ✗ Visually dated
- ✗ Not mobile friendly
LoveCrafts
✦ Indirect Competitor- ✓ Clean modern look
- ✓ Good pattern marketplace
- ✗ Feels like a shop, not a home
- ✗ No real social feed
- ✗ Limited free content
- ✗ Community features thin
- ✓ Great for visual discovery
- ✓ Wide range of users
- ✗ Not fiber arts specific
- ✗ No pattern management
- ✗ No real community
- ✗ Links frequently broken
What people told us ✦
"I just want to find a pattern without clicking through fifteen pages."
Navigation complexity was the most common frustration across every age group
"I learned to knit from YouTube but I have nowhere to share what I'm making."
Younger makers are enthusiastic but have no community space that feels like theirs
"The text is so small and the contrast makes my eyes hurt."
Accessibility failures hit older users and people with visual sensitivities hardest
"I want to support indie designers but they're so hard to find."
Discovery of small independent pattern makers is a shared wish across all ages
two makers, two very different needs
04 ✦ Personas
Designing for
everyone
Two personas shaped almost every decision in this project. They represent the full range of people Yarned wants to welcome, and keeping both of them in mind meant the design had to be genuinely accessible rather than just paying lip service to it.
Maya, 22
✦ The Curious Creator
✿ Who she is
College student who found crochet through TikTok and fell completely in love with it. Shares her works in progress on Instagram but wants somewhere more dedicated to call home.
✿ What she wants
Easy beginner patterns, a place to share her progress, and a community that actually feels like her.
✿ What frustrates her
Everything feels built for someone else. Existing platforms are dated, overwhelming, and hard to navigate.
Barbara, 67
✦ The Seasoned Maker
✿ Who she is
Retired teacher who has knitted for four decades. Left Ravelry after the 2020 redesign triggered migraines. Now lives in Facebook groups but misses having a real pattern library.
✿ What she wants
An organized pattern library, new techniques to explore, and a community that genuinely appreciates the craft.
✿ What frustrates her
Tiny text, poor contrast, complex navigation. Feeling like every platform was designed for someone younger.
how does someone actually move through the site?
05 ✦ User Flow
Keeping the paths
simple and clear
Three core journeys were mapped out early, because the research was very clear: if finding a pattern or sharing your work takes more than a few steps, people give up. Every flow had to feel as easy as chatting with a friend in a yarn shop.
✿ Finding and saving a pattern
✿ Getting started as a new member
✿ Sharing a finished project
getting the structure right before making it pretty
06 ✦ Wireframes
Bones first,
beauty after
Before any color or typography decisions were made, the focus was entirely on structure. Where does the eye land first? How many clicks to find what you need? Does this work for Barbara as much as it works for Maya?
✦ Homepage — Low Fidelity
✦ Pattern Library — Low Fidelity
✦ Homepage — Mid Fidelity
✦ Pattern Library — Mid Fidelity
warm, clear, and genuinely inviting
07 ✦ Final UI
Where the craft
feels at home
The final designs brought the Yarned brand to life: warm parchment tones, Fraunces for that handcrafted serif quality, Nunito keeping everything readable and friendly. The goal was a site that felt like settling into your favorite armchair with a cup of tea and your current project.
✦ Homepage
Share with your
fiber family
patterns, community and makers, all in one cozy place
Explore Patterns Browse Community →
Meadow Cardigan
Harvest Sweater
Robot Buddies
Harvest Tote
maya.makes
Finally finished my first bag!
knit.by.barb
So exited to show my new top!
fiber.studio
New colorway just dropped ✿
✦ Pattern Library
Find your next project 🌿
Meadow Cardigan
Harvest Sweater
Robot Buddies
Harvest Tote Bag
Firetruck Shawl
Oat Textured Sweater
accessibility wasn't a checklist, it was the whole point
08 ✦ Accessibility
Built for everyone,
from day one
Barbara's story was a constant reminder that accessibility can't be retrofitted. Every decision, from the warm parchment background to the minimum font sizes to the navigation structure, was made with the full range of users in mind.
High Contrast
All text passes WCAG AA contrast checks. Body text sits at a minimum 16px and layouts hold together when text is scaled up.
Warm, Easy on the Eyes
Parchment tones instead of harsh white backgrounds, no flickering or heavy animation that could trigger sensitivities.
Clear Navigation
Consistent patterns, plain labels, and a logical structure that reduces the mental load for anyone who isn't very tech confident.
Works on Any Device
Desktop first with full mobile support. Touch targets meet the 44x44px minimum so nothing is fiddly to tap.
Keyboard Friendly
Full keyboard navigation with visible focus states throughout. You should never need a mouse to use Yarned.
Plain, Friendly Language
No jargon. Error messages that actually help. An onboarding flow that takes its time and never makes you feel rushed.
what this project gave me
09 ✦ Reflection
What I took away
from Yarned
This was one of those projects where the constraints became the gift. Designing for a genuinely wide age range pushed every decision toward clarity and warmth. The result is design thinking I carry into everything now.
3
Core user flows mapped
2
Personas developed
AA
WCAG compliance target
✦ What I learned
Designing for accessibility from the very start is so much easier than trying to add it later. And here's the thing nobody tells you: the choices that make a site work for Barbara, the warm palette, the clear hierarchy, the generous spacing, make it better for everyone. Accessibility isn't a constraint. It's just good design.
✦ What comes next
Real usability testing with makers across age groups, building out the community feed and shop pages, and turning all of this into a proper Figma component library so Yarned could actually scale. The foundation is here. Now it needs building.
✦ END OF CASE STUDY ✦
thanks for reading. happy crafting! 🧶