How to make digital sustainability a part of your design process

Author: Niharika Wandrekar

Design is for everyone and everyone can design. However, the ‘what & how’ we choose to design is what matters and exactly where we have the potential to drive change.

We are all Designers

We experience elements of design early on in our lives, as babies we start seeing a few shades of primary colors and gradually our color palette expands. Apart from color, we are also keenly attracted to different forms, shapes, and textures. As babies, we use small blocks to create structures and as adults, we spend time designing products/services, schedules, experiences, homes we live in, workspaces, and so on. This makes me question, “Why are we constantly designing”? In my point of view, because we want to focus on things that truly matter, we want to make it personal, solve a current need, and have a positive impact on our lives and the people close to us.

Sustainable Design: Build with a purpose

Irrespective if you possess a professional skill set as software architects, interior designers, or game designers, we all have had several touch points where we were involved in designing or creating something with a specific outcome in mind. In a creative process, we should be aware that sustainability does not only apply to the choices we make in the physical world but our digital decisions also have a considerable impact on carbon emissions. Just imagine this like a game of Tetris where as soon as you get a combo it has a cascading effect on the Tetriminos. Every click in the digital world follows the same principle and increases carbon emissions. Therefore, it is our responsibility as a whole to be aware of our actions and their impact.

As a user experience designer, I feel lucky to work with a passionate team where we consciously prioritise efforts to identify the purpose before getting straight to recommending or designing solutions. Practicing and implementing sustainable web development is a collaborative effort and the team/company needs to be strong advocates of this practice. Constantly communicating, as well as challenging ideas is the only way we learn, grow, and get better together.

“I am imperfect, We are imperfect, Design is imperfect and there is beauty in imperfection. It is the prime reason we are constantly adapting and evolving ourselves and our design solutions to be a better version than yesterday.”

5 ways to adopt Sustainable UX design

Every click on a web page has an ecological impact which leads to higher CO₂ emissions. As a UX designer and as a person who is trying to make conscious decisions every day, I like to be aware of my digital footprints. I often have the chance to communicate with internal & external teams during the conceptualisation phase, and here is where as a team we need to advocate, educate, and implement sustainable design solutions during the design thinking process. Efficiency and usability are key aspects to be considered alongside sustainability when building services or products keeping in mind the environmental impact each one of us has.

As designers, we play an instrumental role in driving change and have the power to influence decisions, which in my opinion is a huge responsibility. Here are 5 ways we can immediately start practicing sustainable UX methods:

1. Streamline user flows: UX Designers primarily identify user needs by reflecting, creating, and improving the website/app navigation to offer a smooth, intuitive user experience (*defined by a purpose). Defining clear paths and reducing the number of steps taken to complete tasks avoids page reloads and helps reduce carbon emissions. Few things to bear in mind to offer meaningful digital experiences:
   1. Understand what your users are looking for and make it easy for them to find the required information. E.g. finding the right button to click / intuitive placement of the search bar on the website/app.
   2. Create a comprehensible information architecture. Less information clutter = better user experience
   3. Label each page, categories/sub-categories clearly so that users can easily understand and find their way on your platform
   4. The Search & filter function on the website/app should provide effective results without leaving the user confused or misled into performing an unintended action

2. Data is our friend — Search Engine Optimization (SEO): In addition to qualitative data (user research, interviews, testing, etc.) a key aspect often missed is to analyse quantitive behavioral data (clicks, page views, path exploration or bounce rates, etc) to understand the cause of the problem. These nuggets of data help us identify and focus on the problem areas so that we can make informed decisions and refine our designs. A few steps that could be easily implemented:

   1. A comprehensive content structure with headings accurately defined for titles, sub-titles, and sections (H1 / H2 tag).
   2. Images should have alternative text (ALT text) describing the photo uploaded, as this is helpful for people with impairments or when images do not load due to poor connectivity.
   3. Keep content as easy to discover as possible and avoid creating multiple levels of navigation on your platform.

   A well-thought-of SEO content strategy = Enhanced user experience. Optimised websites help users find intended content right away eliminating the need to click aimlessly through the website. Doing so, will help in reducing digital waste and minimise the negative impact on our environment.

   At Factorial, we understood this growing need and developed a governance tool to manage and track a website’s overall quality and performance. This tool empowers our customers to easily comprehend, analyse, and efficiently manage their website’s performance data.

3. Optimise Images: Downloading/loading images consumes a significant amount of data which impacts our digital footprints. Longer loading times increase energy consumption resulting in more carbon emissions. Optimising images offers faster loading times and a smooth digital experience for users. Using modern image compression formats such as .webp /.avif instead of .jpeg is another best practice to reduce digital footprint. By doing this, we also make our services accessible to everyone, especially for people living in regions where they do not have the luxury of high-speed internet. 

   My colleague, Mathias Wächter wrote an interesting article talking about image optimisation and other sustainable web development methods using Drupal Sustainable web development in the backend

4. Mobile first: Websites should be built with the mobile-first approach in mind as it pushes designers to focus on essential content and interactions. This simple approach keeps us aware of our decisions without losing focus on the goal, and of course, there is always room for progressive enhancements later.

   1. Display only necessary content so that users can complete tasks efficiently thereby, reducing the number of clicks and consuming less energy. If the user has dark mode activated, then the energy consumption will be even lower, certainly a win-win!
   2. Content should be easy to grasp and tailored to what the user is looking for on your website
   3. Adopt a responsive design approach to make sure your content adapts to smart devices (breakpoints), which makes it very important to optimise images and videos to ensure faster loading times 
   4. Try not to replicate desktop content without ‘building with a purpose’ for the mobile because it might overwhelm the user i.e. increased cognitive load. Focus on personalising/tailoring the experience for users based on the device they are using to complete their tasks
   5. Learn from your SEO results as this data will provide you insights into user behavior which will allow you to constantly improve the user experience

   Desktops offer a larger real estate (space) to add additional content however with mobile, the space is limited and we need to use it wisely.

   Example: The primary call to action (CTA) can be placed prominently in the first view port so that the user does not need to scroll all the way down.

5. Autoplay for videos: Think about how many times you visited a website and encountered videos playing out of nowhere and you are struggling to find a way to stop it. It ruins our first experience with the product or service, no matter how good it is. Videos are more powerful than ever and have changed how we interact with and consume content. However, when it comes to usability and sustainability, auto-playing videos are not the best practice as they consume a lot of energy and also take away control from the user. It can be a distraction and also could negatively affect the website performance. As we consciously try to reduce our digital footprint, it wouldn’t be so bad to do away with auto-play for the greater good and for our users. Here is what we can do:
   1. Firstly, it is important to decide if the video is an absolute must and if it is the best way to communicate our message with the target audience.
   2. Allow the user to be in control of their actions and how they want to interact with the video.
   3. Embed optimised videos on your platform that do not autoplay/auto preload. Only start loading a video once the user starts playing it. Remember every click contributes to carbon emissions, and focus on keeping the user journey meaningful.
   4. And lastly, if you are embedding videos then make sure they are accessible. Videos should be captioned and if there are images then use alt text to describe the images, so people using screen readers can comprehend the information on the screen.

Practice the 3 R’s to digital sustainability:

Reuse, Reduce and Recycle — Many of us already follow these principles when buying physical products but the same applies to digital products too.

Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon certainly ring a bell and we are familiar with all or most of them. These companies have spent years studying user behavior, and some of them have pioneered unique concepts and designs that now are second nature to us when using their services. We can benefit from their findings and research which are readily available online for inspiration. However, ‘not one size fits all’ so keep your user’s needs and the business goals in mind and use the available wealth of knowledge to develop your own sustainable solutions.

The elephant in the room: User Experience (UX) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will dramatically change the way we interact with digital products and services and it will also open new doors to experiment with innovation. AI helps designers analyse large amounts of data which makes it easier for designers to derive solutions from a varied set of sources. However, on the sustainability front, AI has earned itself quite a controversial reputation. Unfashionably known to be a data guzzler requiring a significant amount of energy and resources. If not used in an energy-efficient manner, popular language models will raise growing concerns about their impact on sustainability. Sounds a bit bleak I know, but people have already noticed the concerns, and necessary steps are underway to reduce the carbon footprint of AI — use of renewable energy and low-power processors amongst other energy-efficient solutions.

There has also been quite a talk about how AI will be replacing many jobs which has left me quite perplexed. Here is what I think, as long as we have to curate experiences for humans, we will continue to need humans to design solutions. AI functions based on human experiences, it cannot think creatively on its own. We also need empathy, rich cultural differences, diversity, imagination and not to forget interpersonal skills. AI does not threaten me, I feel it is a tool developed to help us to simplify tasks so we can focus on the actual problem.

Felt I should end the article with a quote: “There is a YOU in (U)X and an I in A(I). So of course we need you and we need us. In the end, AI needs humans to train it to function optimally.” 

I hope you gather some helpful takeaways from the article that can be put into practice to make a positive impact in the digital space.