Sustainability is not only environmentally friendly, but it is also a lifelong solution for your business.
As it takes care of the earth and the plants, It takes care of the people and their businesses in the same way.
Sustainable web design is the process of optimizing digital products and websites to reduce bandwidth and energy consumption.
Key of a sustainable website:
As you can see, sustainable web design goes beyond design and development to holistic impact assessment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Designing a sustainable website or digital product is not only good for climate change; it also creates business value and reduces costs. Hosting is one of the biggest savings.
Most hosting plans charge you for the amount of server space plus the number of monthly users or bandwidth. Reducing the size of your website saves server space and reduces bandwidth and requests. Self-hosting businesses need smaller data centers and save on energy costs.
Website performance also correlates with increased conversions and page speed is one of Google's ranking factors.
As a result, businesses that optimize website and application performance benefit from cost savings and increased revenue, resulting in a more sustainable business model.
Here are 12 sustainable web design tips that will improve performance, save money, increase user experience and reduce your website's environmental footprint.
According to HTTP Archive, "images are the most popular type of resource on the web" and make up 50% of the average web page size. WebP instead of JPEG or PNG can reduce file size by 25-35% while increasing page speed performance. Converting icons and logos to SVG format can also significantly reduce page weight.
We use WebM instead of MP4 and GIF for video content. WebM is smaller and optimized for the web. Lazy loading is another way to optimize image and video content. Instead of loading all of these assets at once, the browser only loads what's above the fold, then fetches additional images and thumbnails as the user scrolls.
CSS Sprites is an old video game trick to load multiple images with a single HTTP request. Instead of uploading each file individually, stack the images vertically and combine them with a gutter in between.
We use CSS to define position and dimensions, hiding the rest of the stack to make it look like a single-page image. CSS Tricks has an informative article on using CSS sprites including package managers to automate the process.
According to a BBC article: "If every adult in the UK sent one less thank you email, 16,433 tonnes of CO2 could be saved a year, equivalent to taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road."
We review the correspondence and eliminate unnecessary emails. For example, how many emails does a customer receive when they close a sale? We combine them to reduce the number.
Optimizing design workflows can reduce rework, errors and usability issues. These issues often strain resources affecting departments outside the UX. Creating a design system can also help reduce errors and time-to-market while improving the user experience with cleaner user interfaces that load faster.
Mobile-friendly websites need to be lighter to load faster on smartphones. So, adopting a mobile-first design strategy means that designers create value for their users while being environmentally responsible.
Reducing the code removes unnecessary white space, reduces file size and increases page speed. Developers can also combine resource files so browsers have fewer requests.
Choosing the right CMS can also have a significant impact on your website size and page speed. WordPress is often the most popular choice, but it's bulky, outdated and unnecessary for most websites.
So we usually recommend our clients to build the website from raw materials and use a lighter framework to develop content management like Laravel.
According to the US Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Office, data centers account for 2% of electricity consumption in the United States. So, switching to an eco-friendly web hosting provider can help reduce power consumption.
Fonts are known to slow page speed, especially custom and self-hosted fonts. Consider designing your website with one of 18 web-safe fonts that are compatible with all browsers, which means your browser doesn't need to download any additional files.
Hierarchy and navigation play a vital role in helping users find content quickly and complete tasks. We prioritize essential navigation in the header (4-5 maximum) and secondary links in the footer.
The hierarchy helps users identify important content and complete tasks faster. Visual hierarchy is also a crucial factor in user experience and website accessibility.
At each visit to a new page, the browser must send a request to the server, which returns the content and resources of the page. The more visits you have to the page, the more work (and energy consumption) the server has to do to deliver content.
We always suggest and consider buying refurbished equipment whenever possible.
If you are ready to start a project or have questions about our process, send us a message.
We will be more than happy to help.
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