Sustainable
Web Design

Why is that person on your website in the first place, and how can we make their journey as efficient as possible?

This is all about removing barriers for them, such as unnecessary popups, or avoiding things like 'dark patterns'.

Yes, they make your website look very interesting, but they're also some of the largest energy users out there, comprising of 63% of global internet traffic in 2015 (Greenpeace, 2017), a figure that is only expected to rise.

This is especially true when using autoplay, as videos that are instantly rolling when you click onto a site are using energy regardless of whether the user wants or needs to view the file.

When you use a video file, it should add genuine value to the user journey. Does this make their life easier? If the answer is no, then you are the Weakest Link… Goodbye.

Now, we love a custom font more than the average Joe, but it's important to remember that they can drastically increase the size of web pages.

A single font can be as much as 250kb, and each differing version (e.g. italic, bold) can add another 250kb on top of that! No, your entire website doesn't need to be in Comic Sans, but where possible designers should work with system fonts and only use custom fonts for particular design elements (e.g. headers).

Fonts that are already integrated into a user's device will decrease the load time and energy consumption of your site, especially when using Google fonts as these are web optimised and better for performance.

This is a hard pill to swallow: Images take up most of the file size on websites.

Decreasing image use can improve performance and energy use, so it's important to optimise them for the web, especially when scaling for different devices. In our opinion, it's all about balance - You can have a good looking site without stuffing it full of images, that's where a designer comes in.

You've all seen dark mode on your phone, and the good news is that darker colours require less energy to illuminate, with certain apps such as Google Maps using as much as 63% less screen energy in night mode (Phone Arena, 2018).

White is the most energy intensive colour to use online, with certain other colours, like blue pixels, using considerably more energy than red and green pixels.

If we can keep your site as clean as possible, you're onto a winner. Certain brands, such as The British Museum and Spotify, have integrated darker digital schemes into their identity, becoming iconic for their use of lighter-coloured copy.

The web experience on the organisation's side should also be kept as efficient as possible, simplifying content management and admin processes to save on energy usage by your own team members.

Similarly, back end management should allow for easy review and removal of outdated content, reducing energy consumption in data storage.

It's also a plus for you guys: Our Spidey Senses tell us that you probably want a website that is easy and efficient to manage.