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A Book Apart #34
Sustainable Web Design
The internet may be digital, but it carries a very physical cost. From image files to colors to coding languages to servers, the choices we make in our web work can eat up electricity and spit out carbon—and as the internet grows, so does the cost to the environment.
But there’s hope: small, thoughtful changes in design and development can reduce the damage, while also making the web more resilient in the face of a changing climate. In Sustainable Web Design, Tom Greenwood offers a practical path to faster, more carbon-efficient websites that are not only better for the planet, but better for our users.
But there’s hope: small, thoughtful changes in design and development can reduce the damage, while also making the web more resilient in the face of a changing climate. In Sustainable Web Design, Tom Greenwood offers a practical path to faster, more carbon-efficient websites that are not only better for the planet, but better for our users.
125 pages, Unknown Binding
Published February 9, 2020
15 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 3, 2021
I've know that there is a movement to make the web more sustainable for a while, but this is the first book I've read about it. I read the book, honestly, because it's from A Book Apart, and I give pretty much everything they publish a read.
I'm recommending the book, however, because it illustrates that sustainability is one more excellent reason to run an efficient, cleanly-coded, performant website.
An efficient site lets a user do the task they arrived to do in the fewest possible understandable steps, and with the fewest possible distractions.
A cleanly-coded website has less code cruft, takes up less server space, takes up less time to transmit from place to place, and has fewer errors.
A performant website also takes up less server space and less time to transmit from place to place. Additionally, it makes the web feel "snappy" and increases user confidence and satisfaction.
All of those things help us burn less electricity (both as the web consumer and -- more importantly -- as the web producer), and as a result, increase the sustainability of the internet. Considering that the internet is, as Tom Greenwood puts it, a coal-fired machine, any increase we can make is progress.
Sustainability is important, but sustainability isn't my passion in UX (at least right now). My passion is seeing that coal-fired machine become more accessible to people with disabilities and users in general.
Turns out that efficiency, clean code, and performance also increase accessibility. Especially when we're talking about things like "yo how about you remove those eleventy billion javascript frameworks that aren't accessible, eat a ton of server space, and make loading times agonizing, and try plain static html instead?"
We all have our passions in UX, and that's good. It helps to keep the larger culture balanced. But it's also excellent when we can places where our different goals can be met together using common techniques.
Whether you're passionate about sustainability, accessibility, or just plain great UX, whether your interest is in software, hardware, or managing data centers, whether you are a lifelong tech geek who remembers when everything had to fit on a floppy disk or you're new to the web and don't remember a time before Amazon.com, Tom Greenwood's book will have suggestions for how you can make your products, and our planet, more sustainable. And probably hit a good number of your other life goals on the way.
I'm recommending the book, however, because it illustrates that sustainability is one more excellent reason to run an efficient, cleanly-coded, performant website.
An efficient site lets a user do the task they arrived to do in the fewest possible understandable steps, and with the fewest possible distractions.
A cleanly-coded website has less code cruft, takes up less server space, takes up less time to transmit from place to place, and has fewer errors.
A performant website also takes up less server space and less time to transmit from place to place. Additionally, it makes the web feel "snappy" and increases user confidence and satisfaction.
All of those things help us burn less electricity (both as the web consumer and -- more importantly -- as the web producer), and as a result, increase the sustainability of the internet. Considering that the internet is, as Tom Greenwood puts it, a coal-fired machine, any increase we can make is progress.
Sustainability is important, but sustainability isn't my passion in UX (at least right now). My passion is seeing that coal-fired machine become more accessible to people with disabilities and users in general.
Turns out that efficiency, clean code, and performance also increase accessibility. Especially when we're talking about things like "yo how about you remove those eleventy billion javascript frameworks that aren't accessible, eat a ton of server space, and make loading times agonizing, and try plain static html instead?"
We all have our passions in UX, and that's good. It helps to keep the larger culture balanced. But it's also excellent when we can places where our different goals can be met together using common techniques.
Whether you're passionate about sustainability, accessibility, or just plain great UX, whether your interest is in software, hardware, or managing data centers, whether you are a lifelong tech geek who remembers when everything had to fit on a floppy disk or you're new to the web and don't remember a time before Amazon.com, Tom Greenwood's book will have suggestions for how you can make your products, and our planet, more sustainable. And probably hit a good number of your other life goals on the way.
March 18, 2021
An excellent (and much needed) primer on the topic of sustainability of digital products. Must read for every product/design/development professional
March 29, 2023
Especially for digital designers this is must read. Very clear and comprehensive book about sustainability - the topic too little talked about.
Sustainability starts from ecological and leads through social to economical outcomes. So also if you want to take accessibility into consideration, here’s good read for you.
Sustainability starts from ecological and leads through social to economical outcomes. So also if you want to take accessibility into consideration, here’s good read for you.
April 25, 2021
Tom made a really nice job mixing personal experiences, industry techniques, and scientific evidence around the realm of the green web. It was a very useful read — I hope others enjoy it as much as I did.
June 24, 2021
Anyone interested in sustainability or the environment that works in tech/design/web development should read this book! It's a concise read.
January 17, 2022
A good quick read that covered a lot of ground. I learned some new stuff in it's hundred or so pages, but I wish it was a little more prescriptive with concrete ways to measure things.
March 17, 2023
This book is really great at explaining what Sustainable Web Design is, and it was this book that got me interested.
January 28, 2024
Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood and A Book Apart is an excellent introduction to, well, sustainable web design. On over 100 pages, you’ll get a range of issues - calculating carbon emissions of your website, how our use of the internet and digital in general is wasteful, but also how to select a hosting provider, encourage decision-making people to invest in sustainable ideas and how to change our day-to-day routines to create more planet-friendly products.
It was the first book on the topic I read, and I’m interested in knowing more. Nowadays, it’s essential to think not only about ourselves but also about the planet and its future—every small step counts, and even with our small decisions when coding, we can help.
It was the first book on the topic I read, and I’m interested in knowing more. Nowadays, it’s essential to think not only about ourselves but also about the planet and its future—every small step counts, and even with our small decisions when coding, we can help.
December 17, 2024
In the goal of creating a green future, we're going to have to figure out how to tackle the emissions of our digital infrastructure. Websites are highly energy consumptive, and this book is about how we might reduce the carbon emissions. Greenwood covers a lot of ground, but the areas of action I see are these: we need to reduce the amount of energy our websites consume, and what energy the websites do consume should come from green sources. As climate scientist Leah Stokes points out, if we greenify our energy consumption oh, we've got a long way towards accomplishing our goal!
August 3, 2023
This is a great, easy to read guide for anyone interested in digital sustainability and how we can design digital products that don’t harm the planet. It’s actionable and full of examples. Highly recommended!
April 9, 2023
Small enough to read in an afternoon, and contains a lot of great ideas and resources to make the web more sustainable. Great starting point!
August 31, 2023
There are so many interesting things I had never heard of or considered before in this book. I think it’s an important read.
November 4, 2024
Not rigorous enough. Lots of unnecessary content. But not a lot alternative content around this topic.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews