Design for sustainability

The internet is becoming the worlds largest source of CO2 emissions. 560,000 agencies around the world make daily design decisions on behalf of their clients, directly impacting internet sustainability. Tim Frick explains how to apply sustainability principles to the process of designing digital products and services, helping you make better decisions on behalf of people and the planet.

Drawing on the concepts from his book Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services, Tim Frick covers practical tactics for creating greener digital products and services in the following areas: Impact of devices and data: 90% of all data ever created was produced in the last year. What impact does that have on our planet? Search and content strategy: If content is clearly written and optimized for search, users will spend less time (and energy) locating information that is relevant to them. This results in reduced server requests and fewer page elements—like photos and videos, which take up a lot of bandwidth—loading unnecessarily. These small energy savings accumulate over time. Specific tactics: SEO basics, page/domain authority, search-on-site, nav labels, page briefs, content audits, and CTAs Performance optimization: Speedy, reliable pages are better for users and better for the environment. Your customers expect to get the content they want instantly. Performance-optimized websites or mobile apps send fewer files and use less processing power on both the server and the frontend, which of course means they also use less energy. Optimizing your site for performance can also significantly reduce bounce rates and abandoned shopping carts. Specific tactics: WPO basics and defining and adhering to page weight budgets Design and user experience: Creating a great experience across devices and platforms—including enabling technologies for users with disabilities—is more sustainable. If users have to struggle with design experiences not optimized for their particular devices, they waste time and energy. Specific tactics: Optimizing design assets, mobile first versus adaptive versus responsive, user and A/B testing, component design, and avoiding dark patterns Green hosting: The servers that store your files require power 24 hours a day, so the single most impactful thing you can do is choose a hosting provider that runs on 100% renewable energy. But all hosting providers are not created equal, and choosing a reliable “green” hosting provider isn’t quite as easy as it may seem. Along the way, Tim shares inspiring examples of companies and organizations that have implemented these practices for measurable results.