August 25, 2008 – 11:26 am
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As we all know, green design is no longer about light bulbs and electric cars. Windmills and solar panels play an important part in sustaining energy and our future, but what about conserving our digital economy?
From producers to buyers and everything in between, all of you are powering web 2.0. and everyone will have a role in determining the shape of the next generation Internet. As more people get directly involved in producing content on the web, we all have the option to implement best-practices in ‘digital conservation’.
We know about the greening of data centers. Instead of busting out a new tech meme for green coding practices, let’s reuse some older terms. Below are some familiar terms to get you started thinking green in your designs, work-flows and coding practices. This is not meant to be a definition of sustainable web design but it could lead you to more research.
Reduce
Power requirements in web servers are going down. Energy Star compliance for computers was the beginning but data centers are now driving cooling, energy and bandwidth requirements. Hosting control panels are reducing the amount of support required by giving more control to the site owner and site designers. Better designs which include mature, standards-based languages and coding practices help insure we get the most logic from the least amount of code.
Web standards like XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 help reduce the amount of code on a page. Emerging standards like POSH and other Microformats help designers write semantically-correct code leveraging existing standards. Spending less time learning new standards shortens learning curves. Shorter learning curves free designers to focus more on user needs and sustainability.
Recycle
Design patterns help recycle code, imagery, and media based on past-project requirements. One example might be shopping cart code that is recycled from product sku to product sku. The same JavaScript is reused while the variables get updated for each product skew. The associated graphical elements, like “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” buttons might be recycled from other navigational aids found in the site design. Rich Media such as product video introductions can be recycled from product to product using the similar titles, intro and credits.
One key to recycling code is the separation of code from presentation and style. Themes are a great example of site design recycling since a theme can be easily duplicated, and recycled through designer customizations.
Reuse
Hot-swappable hardware such as hard drives are refurbished and disk images are reused across entire server farms. Virtualization software and platforms help optimize the entire process. Even though we’re just in the beginning stages of green design, the techniques we’re employing in the technology sector are amazing. It seems to have started in the data centers.
Data centers themselves are now being located near renewable energy sources and some web hosts are entirely off-the-grid. Just as the data centers were driven to go green by cost-savings, green design is beginning to take hold as standards progress.
Another example of “reuse” is the popular one-click installations offered by many web hosts. Entire websites are now installed with just a few clicks and an ever-increasing amount of code in site designs are reused. Portions of your site design may be reused on other sites such as social networks. Your CSS, product descriptions and contact information may be simply cut and paste between many sites.
In sum, conservation starts with a mindset and we all have the power to contribute in different ways.
Additional Reading
Web Standards Project
Sustainable Web Design
Sustainable Web Community
Seven steps to a green data center
Sustainability Defined at Wikipedia
Posted by
Arman Rousta
Posted in
Graphic Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Public Relations, Website Design, World, blog, green marketing, web development |
1 Comment »
Tags: green web design, recycle, reduce, reuse, sustainable
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