This was a whole other learning curve. I reached out to one of the (large) crochet social media networks that I participate in and asked for volunteer testers. I’ve seen this type of post numerous times and have even volunteered for a couple myself. Many designers have requirements and timelines for their testers and unfortunately, the times I have volunteered, I didn’t meet all the demands and therefore haven’t participated as a tester for a designer. I chose to keep it simple without too many stipulations and yet, I felt there was still a lot of activity pertaining to my pattern testers. As I continue designing more patterns, I will have to take into consideration any legal conditions in order to protect my future business and brand.
It was more time intensive than I imagined (and hoped) it would be, but it mostly related to time management and where the testers were in the process. I had a couple testers who flaked out after volunteering, while others just needed a nudge to complete in a timely manner so that I could take into account their feedback. I had a total of 8 testers who volunteered and completed 1 or 2 sizes for a total of 11 results, which accounted for 5 sizes out of the 7 I had in my pattern.
I initially intended to include diagrams of the different panels, but ultimately decided not to. I really wanted to vet the written portion well, and determine what was understood without the added visual cues from a diagram. It turned out to be a good choice because I made revisions to a few sections of the pattern where I received the same inquiry for clarification from most of the testers. However, I did include them for the final drafted pattern presented for this project.
I did add photos in the pattern for the areas where I felt the written directions could not be changed for clarity, or the layout due to multiple sizes made the sequence hard to follow, even for myself. Half of my testers said that the photos added were helpful, and another 3 said they weren’t necessary but nice as part of the pattern. I will note however that of those 3, 2 reached out for clarification, so I believe the pictures were validated to have as a reference. The final volunteer indicated she would have liked two of the specific pictures to have added a little detail like an arrow pointing to the stitch that the step was referring to but they were otherwise helpful.
Another alteration was that I did not provide the finished fit information in the draft as several of the testers stated a bit of slight surprise after realizing it was a close-fitted top. The feedback on fit proved that my numbers worked! It was closely fitted as I intended it to have minimal ease (1-2″) from the chest/bust standard measurements for each size. However, about 3/4 of my testers said that they would have preferred a looser fit for the medium weight yarns that ranged on the thicker side. Moving forward, consideration on comfort is a must, in addition to fit.
References
Sikkema, K. (n.d.) Blankets and scarfs in the works [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/XvGoXXZnCkg