How long have we been talking about ecology?
First, the term ecology was coined in 1866. People have been made aware of it for several years now, and many associations are dedicated to defending the environment.
Today we have favoured digital in order to drop physical media. Is that the solution to save natural resources? The answer isn’t obvious.
What is the impact of digital on the environment and our living conditions?
Digital pollution refers to the pollution caused by all the new technologies. It splits into two areas: the pollution generated by running the internet network, and the pollution generated by manufacturing our computing tools.
Indeed, a simple internet search emits the equivalent of 5 to 7 grams of CO2. One hour of internet use on a global scale is equivalent to consuming 4,000 tonnes of oil, that is, 4,000 return flights from Paris to New York!
As a result, you should favour the shortest path to avoid creating traffic and putting the “data centres” to work. Today, digital uses more energy than aviation.
So it is internet users who consume the most. Indeed, sites and apps demand more and more memory. On top of that, they move more data, which increases the ecological footprint of digital.
Currently we hear about eco-design
The key move of web eco-design is to streamline the functional coverage and depth as much as possible, keeping only the essentials. UX, by favouring an efficient technical architecture, will let the user optimise the resources they use. This will contribute to the development of eco-design.
What’s more, the aspirations of ecological design meet UX challenges on many points (accessibility, usefulness, effectiveness and efficiency).
Indeed, sorting and prioritising features to eliminate the ones that aren’t essential, assessing the user’s use and need, guiding the user as they use a service so they easily find what they’re looking for, and processing user data in batches are all goals of UX design.
UX acts directly on user behaviour. It has an impact on the perception of your products and services, on the trust and loyalty they have towards you. What’s more, through several methods (observation, interviews, guerilla tests, and so on), this discipline lets you study and understand users’ uses and needs.
User experience isn’t just a passing trend, it’s an important element, a concept adopted in the digital world. From that point, all companies should put the user at the centre of their studies; it is the very foundation of user experience.
The role of UX
The aim of UX design is to adapt to the target users and the contexts of use. As a result, the UX methodology analyses, upfront, the criteria of its target group, in order to adapt accessibility, both physiological and hardware-related.
UX research can assess which features are non-essential. By reducing the functional coverage and depth of the application, we reduce its initial development cost, its technical debt and the associated environmental impacts. So we mechanically reduce the infrastructure needed to run it. An ergonomics audit can help identify these unnecessary features.
For example, the WEB success stories — Google, WhatsApp, etc. — provide a single service and bet on great functional simplicity.
What’s more, an efficient information architecture reduces the time the user spends looking for information. This can therefore help reduce the number of unnecessary interactions. Likewise, the time a user spends on a website or an online service is the most decisive factor in reducing or increasing the environmental footprint of a site or app.
As a result, UX can contribute to the development of eco-design in real-world use! Optimising user journeys is essential in this approach.
Wrap-up on UX research and ecology
We have also put together a list of good UX/UI design practices for a greener web, here.
Sources
Bordage, F. (2015). Éco-conception web / les 115 bonnes pratiques: doper son site et réduire son empreinte écologique (2e éd.). Eyrolles.
White paper: digital and the environment (opens in new window)
https://fr.slideshare.net/ChristopheClouzeau/green-it-les-paradoxes-de-lcologie-numrique-confrence-numripro-2017-universit-rennes-2-75816391 https://www.kaizen-magazine.com/article/le-numerique-cest-plus-ecologique
https://www.greenpeace.fr/il-est-temps-de-renouveler-internet/ (opens in new window)
Garric, A. (2011). Combien de C02 pèsent un mail, une requête Web et une clé USB ? Le Monde Blogs. Available here. (opens in new window)
