Sustainable design: designing green and inclusive digital experiences

Sustainable design and technology

In a world dominated by technology, making physical products following the principles of optimising material resources is becoming an almost marginal issue when we think of the technological effort behind every production process: even technology has a cost in environmental terms, so designing sustainable products (and services) requires that the technology itself be sustainable.

But what is meant by sustainable technology?

To be defined as sustainable, technology must fulfil two conditions.

The first condition is the development from sustainable resources: an example is solar panels, a physical technology that uses renewable resources to produce energy.

The second condition to classify a technology as sustainable is that it is developed with the objective of promoting environmental, social and governance (ESG)sustainability: this could be the case of software developed to account for carbon emissions and identify opportunities to reduce them by intervening in business processes or promoting the adoption of renewable energy.

Accessibility, inclusiveness, sustainability

Recycled paper (to give an earthy example of sustainability on the physical product side).

Technologies, from renewable energy and designed to optimise the management of environmental resources. But it doesn’t end there. Sustainable design in fact also means inclusivity and accessibility: if you are wondering how theaccessibility of any digital content impacts the environment, it is quickly said. Making online content quick and easy for all people, regardless of their individual capabilities and possibilities, reduces the resources required by everyone to access a satisfying experience.

4 principles for designing a sustainable digital experience

But how do you design sustainable digital content? IBM has dedicated the IBM Design for sustainability position paper, whichincludes a detailed check list, to this topic.The guidelines refer to four areas of action which, if well designed, lead to significant resource savings in the long term.

1. Content design

Design experiences following practices that optimise accessibility, usability and search: information efficiency (concise text and plain language) helps users find content and complete tasks quickly.

2. Inclusive design

Not all users have the same possibilities of accessing technology (the so-called digital divide, which may depend on economic conditions, level of education, quality of infrastructure, geographical origin, etc.): this requires that the design takes into account the potential range of platforms, devices, connection speeds and modes of use.

3. User experience design

Usability is one of the cornerstones of sustainable design: a well-designed UX helps people to achieve their goals efficiently and satisfactorily and, by reducing unnecessary page loads, helps to reduce consumption and emissions.

4. Visual design

Visual elements such as videos, images and fonts play an important role in the design of sustainable digital experiences: they are elements that have a significant impact on UX but also on the size of a page and the overall size of the application, thus influencing sustainability.

Design for sustainability made in Palazzina Creativa

At Palazzina Creativa we have always believed that the services and products we develop in the digital field should also have a positive social, environmental and economic impact: in short, contribute to a more sustainable future. This vision led us to become aB Corp certified communication agencyin 2022: in fact we continue to follow what was our ideal but, as part of the B Corp network, we also have standards to meet and objectives that are more challenging every year.

Since 2023, we have started to adopt IBM’s own sustainable design guidelines: what do we do in practice?

Printed products

We focus as much as possible on the use of recycled papers and FSC-certified papers from responsible forestry management. But also on a product design that is intended both toreduce material waste and to be lightweight, so as to keep emissions low even during transport.

Digital products

We design sites and services that limit resource consumption and offer accessible and inclusive experiences. Specifically, here is what we do:

• We reuse content and assets whenever possible, while removing unnecessary/unused pages and assets;
• We optimise navigation flows, to help users reach their target quickly;
• We use accessible colour combinations and contrasts, appropriately sized fonts and alt text for non-decorative images (and rely on tools to assess accessibility and improve inclusivity);
• We collaborate with developers to optimise computing, storage and network impact , and use tools to assess, understand and improve the weight of each page;
• We lighten the weight of the content: we only load the fonts actually used and light images with the same visual impact, vector graphics or CSS style when possible, videos in the shortest version – without impacting the message – and with preview images.

Sustainable design = digital equity

Designing sustainable products in the digital environment is a challenge that all companies are bound to take up in the near future: one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the UN 2030 Agenda,Goal 12 SDG – Responsible Consumption and Production, demands it.

Besides being an environmental imperative, however, it is now clear that it is also a good thing to bridge the digital divide: the development of accessible and inclusive online experiences (the ‘side effect’ of sustainable design) is in fact proving to be a powerful accelerator in the direction of digital equality.