Recommended articles, podcasts, communities and more regarding green UX/UI Design
Here you’ll find a very personal list of selected links that have been extremely helpful to me along the way in understanding the topic, finding study results, meeting people, and falling in love with the details of sustainable UX / UI design.
Podcasts
Green the Web
My own podcast is about sustainable UX/UI design. It’s discussing ecological and social User Research, Information Architecture, User Interface Design and all kinds of other aspects for sustainable designers.
Green Design Podcast list
Browse through my growing Green Design Podcast Spotify Playlist that suits as a collection of various cool podcast episodes about green web design. With both English and German episodes.
Green IO
Gaël Duez raises awareness for more digital sustainability with his podcast Green IO. It comes with exciting episodes with Chris Adams, Hannah Smith, Fershad Irani and many more (including me wohoo).
Environment Variables
The Green Software Foundation hosts the podcast Environment Variables and interviews various tech workers on the topic of digitization, energy demand and green software.
Books and ebooks
Sustainable Web Design
Tom Greenwood’s book Sustainable Web Design is a real gem in this green web design niche. It covers a lot of ground, from analysis to concrete steps and well-researched facts.
Designing for sustainability
Tim Frick’s book Designing for Sustainability really packs a punch. It covers all sorts of topics from sustainable hosting to content to ways of working. And it also takes a very scientific approach to the subject.
The Non-Human Persona Guide
Learn how to create and use personas for nature and invisible humans to respect their needs during design. It comes with learnings from designers from around the world (incl. Green the Web).
World Wide Waste
You want to know more about the facts, figures and background of the internet? You want to get an idea of how much data garbage we have already produced? Then Gerry McGovern’s book World Wide Waste is just the one for you.
Sustainable Web Design in 20 Lessons
Find ways on how to exactly make a difference in green web development. This book is more for the tech lover talking about CDNs, JavaScript, code and more. It comes with a lot of tangible examples and ideas.
Ethical Design Handbook
The Ethical Design Handbook is a practical guide on ethical design for digital products. It includes discussions on data security, transparency, positive change, and ethical design practices.
Digital sustainability on your WordPress site (German)
This ebook supports you in creating a lightweight WordPress website. The guide talks about images, fonts, colors, code and much more. Including step-by-step explanations.
Smart green world (German)
“Smart green world” is a book about digitization between surveillance, consumption and sustainability. It revolves in many ways around the opportunities and risks of digitization.
Sustainable Graphic Design (German)
Pia Weissenfeld wrote an in-depth book around print and web design, specializing in print graphic design and how to print in the most ecologically way.
Conferences
Sustainable UX conference 2019
The Sustainable UX Conference includes many valuable sessions on ethically, environmentally and socially sustainable UX in different industries.
Bits und Bäume conference
The Bits and Trees Conference is a great collection of awesome German and English talks that address the various topics around sustainability on the web.
Communities
ClimateAction.tech
The CAT community is a very diverse and international group of people from various industries. Among other things, there is a Slack group for exchange (highly recommended), volunteer opportunities and many exciting lectures and projects.
Climate Designers
Originated in the U.S., subgroups are gradually being opened in various countries via the Community Climate Designers. Slowly, there also will be more local chapters which could be near you. There is an exchange platform and you can be listed as a Climate Designer.
Sustainable UX (SUX)
First it was a manifesto, now it’s a bunch of people who are actively looking for more sustainable UX solutions with the help of a toolkit. Around it, an international community is emerging that is well worth a look.
Mindful Commerce
Mindful Commerce is both, a directory for ethical marketers and designers as well as a great community. There are monthly meetups, exciting talks and the opportunity to exchange ideas about ethical selling.
Bits und Bäume
Originating from the Bits and Trees conference, this community is dedicated to all socially, ecologically and socially sustainable topics of digitization. Exciting topics are always discussed, especially in the forum.
Reflecta (German)
Reflecta is a German-speaking community of change makers and people who want to make a difference. There are matchings to expand your network, a marketplace and a lot of space to discuss and exchange ideas.
Other great guides and directories
Sustainable Web Design
Sustainable Web Design is a site from the two agencies Mightybytes and WholegrainDigital, who deal very extensively with the ecological aspect of web design and have also written the Sustainable Web Manifesto.
Web Almanac Sustainability section
Amazingly, the Web Almanac now has a sustainable design section with an incredible amount of information about especially the environmental impact of the web.
Life Centered Design
Life Centered Design is a curated directory of resources to help design more responsible, sustainable, ethical and all in all more meaningful products, systems, and services.
Nachhaltiges Webdesign Jetzt
Gerrit Schuster has created an absolutely great library of sustainable web do’s and dont’s. The library is constantly growing and contains an enormous number of great tips and tricks for green web design.
Sustainablewww
SustainableWWW is a group of web developers and designers that publish resources about environmentally friendly web design.
Threebility Impact Canvas
Threebility provides us with methods to think about business in a more sustainable way. These include the Impact Canvas and the Sustainable Business Model Canvas.s
Design Sustainably EU
Design Sustainably EU is a site about green web design and green tech by Peter Rod, a fellow UX designer with a lot of his favorite resources.
The Ethical Move
The Ethical Move group deals with all ethical topics in the digital field. You can also take their pledge. Absolutely recommended and great!
The Green Pages
The Green Pages are another extensive list of articles, resources and topics that I can highly recommend to check out.
Sustainable Dev Directory
The Sustainable Dev Directory offers a list of sustainable developers as well as super helpful resources. Especially for tech savvy web designers and devs.
Sustainable web entrepreneur Directory (German)
This directory is currently creating a great group of web designers, developers, marketers and strategists who are committed to environmental sustainability.
Articles and studies
Green UX: Is your UI harming the environment?
The article provides an overview of parts of the problem and ways to make better decisions as a UX designer.
Sustainable UX Design
A short article and introduction to the topic of sustainable web design and the carbon footprint of the internet.
Ericsson study: ICT and the climate
The Ericsson study is an insanely comprehensive publication with lots of valuable content on the entire information and communications industry including, video, social media, data centers, etc.
Low Tech Magazine
A solar powered blog that is also sometimes unavailable when there is not enough sun. Low Tech Magazine questions many topics and always presents exciting discussions for debate.
Green web hosting: Comparison (German)
Web hosting with electricity from renewable sources makes a very big difference in the sustainability of your website. How can anyone find and choose a green web host?
How CDN is better for the planet
When choosing your hoster’s location, it is important to go for local data centers. Close to your main target audience. Or to choose a CDN. Because distance is also important for data streams.
Using Ethics In Web Design
Ethical thinking was the cornerstone of the Internet, yet somehow it got lost. What can you do to bring them back? What are questions, methods and tools?
Green UX Checklist
Manoverboard’s Green UX Checklist helps to get you started with six easy steps like image compression and optimization tools.
Studies of the Borderstep Institute
The Borderstep Institute repeatedly publishes great studies on a very scientific basis, e.g. on data centers or the energy requirements of video streaming.
The Megawatts behind Your Megabytes: Going from Data-Center to Desktop
According to the study, internet energy consumption is roughly divided into 48% for the data centers, 14% for the telecommunications networks, and 38% for the user’s end devices. This varies for each website and user, of course, but it represents a typical scenario.
Publication “Künstliche Intelligenz – Können wir mit Rechenleistung unseren Planeten retten?” (German)
The publication highlights both the opportunities of digitization in the form of artificial intelligence, but also the downsides. It discusses how future AI can be designed with real added value for the environment and climate.
Mightybytes Blog
The Mightybytes agency has a great blog on all sorts of topics and lots of content on green web design. Highly recommended.
WholegrainDigital Blog
The agency WholegrainDigital also has a great blog on all sorts of topics and lots of content on green web design. There is also a great newsletter.
Tweetfarts
One single tweet generates as much CO2, as a human fart and therefore 0.02g CO2. With 500 mio. tweets daily that sums up to 10 tons CO2/day.
Permaculture on the web
An article on the twelve principles of permaculture that can be applied to designing websites in a sustainable and inclusive way.
Mozilla Internet Health Report
Mozilla releases an annual Internet Health Report that also discusses the environmental sustainability of the web.
Manifestos
Sustainable Web Manifesto
The Sustainable Web Manifesto is a call for open, clean, efficient, honest, regenerative and resilient web design.
Design manifesto by Sam Smith
The Design manifesto by Sam Smith is a well written personal manifesto that inspires and gives lots of ideas for oneself.
Oslo Manifesto
The Oslo Manifesto would like to inspire designers and creatives of all kinds to adopt the SDGs as design standards for a new, sustainable world.
CDR Manifesto
The Corporate Digital Responsibility Manifesto addresses the socially, economically and environmentally responsible use of data and digital technologies.
Climate Designers Values
The Climate Designers network has published their values in a manifesto. It’s inspiring and educational at the same time.
Society Centered Design Principles
The manifesto covers principles around citizen empowerment, civic commons, public health, equity and the planet.
AGD Charta (German)
The AGD Charta for sustainable design serves all designers, from print and graphic, to product, process and web designers.
Who’s talking to you about this?
Hi, I’m Sandy, a UX/UI designer from Cologne with the vision of a sustainable web. I support brands to create ecologically sustainable websites, applications, online stores, portals and other digital products. Because we as designers and companies have a responsibility. And because it honestly has a lot of benefits.
There are so many great and creative ways that I like to incorporate into my projects and share with you outside of them. You have links that you would like to see here in the list? Then send me a message and let’s chat about what I should definitely include here.
Listen to the Green the Web podcast
Tune into ecological and social Research, UX and UI Design as well as other aspects of sustainable designers or business owners.
Work with me on your website, shop or app
You’re looking for sustainable user research, UX conception, UI design or simply someone who can look over things? Let’s get together!
Become a sustainable designer
As a designer you want to align your values with your job. Find out more about trainings, free resources, my blog and much more.