Pixels use electricity, and a lot of it. If the Internet were a country, it would be the sixth largest in terms of electricity use. That’s because today’s average web page has surpassed two megabytes in size, leading to slow load times, frustrated users, and a lot of wasted energy. With this practical guide, your web design team will learn how to apply sustainability principles for creating speedy, user-friendly, and energy-efficient digital products and services. Author Tim Frick introduces a web design framework that focuses on four key areas where these principles can make a difference: content strategy, performance optimization, design and user experience, and green hosting. You’ll discover how to provide users with a streamlined experience, while reducing the environmental impact of your products and services. Learn why 90% of the data that ever existed was created in the last year Use sustainability principles to innovate, reduce waste, and function more efficiently Explore green hosting, sustainable business practices, and lean/agile workflows Put the right things in front of users at precisely the moment they need them—and nothing more Increase site search engine visibility, streamline user experience, and make streaming video more efficient Use Action Items to explore concepts outlined in each chapter

This book discusses the most significant ways in which design has been applied to sustainability challenges using an evolutionary perspective. It puts forward an innovation framework that is capable of coherently integrating multiple design for sustainability (DfS) approaches developed so far. It is now widely understood that design can and must play a crucial role in the societal transformations towards sustainability. Design can in fact act as a catalyst to trigger and support innovation, and can help to shape the world at different levels: from materials to products, product–service systems, social organisations and socio-technical systems. This book offers a unique perspective on how DfS has evolved in the past decades across these innovation levels, and provides insights on its promising and necessary future development directions. For design scholars, this book will trigger and feed the academic debate on the evolution of DfS and its next research frontiers. For design educators, the book can be used as a supporting tool to design courses and programmes on DfS. For bachelor’s and master’s level design, engineering and management students, the book can be a general resource to provide an understanding of the historical evolution of DfS. For design practitioners and businesses, the book offers a rich set of practical examples, design methods and tools to apply the various DfS approaches in practice, and an innovation framework which can be used as a tool to support change in organisations that aim to integrate DfS in their strategy and processes.

Design for Sustainability is a practical approach to design which focuses on the challenges and issues faced by those designing consumer products in the 21st Century. It is written from a design perspective and aimed at both professional and student industrial and product designers, and those involved in managing design. The book begins by summarising the historical and current issues of the environmental debate in the context of sustainable product development, highlighting the benefits gained from considering the impact on the environment and issues of sustainability when designing. The authors answer the questions: What is sustainable product development and why is it important? What are the main drivers of sustainable product development? They explain how design can help to control human impact on the environment by not only minimising pollution, waste, energy use and use of scarce resources, but also by thinking outside the box to create systems and services that can reduce the number of products manufactured. The aim is to put sustainable development within a commercial context and introduce a new focus for design. Design for Sustainability outlines and assesses the methods, tools and techniques available to designers, both for design innovation and design improvement. A wide range of case studies are presented across a number of product sectors including electrical goods, IT and furniture. Initially they demonstrate product improvement and redesign, examples include those that reduce waste, pollution and energy consumption, designing for recycling and reuse of parts. Further examples are then provided exemplifying the more radical approach of system and service design. The final section takes the reader through a whole sustainable design project from start to finish, from brief to manufacture. References and sources of information are also included.

With radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces systems design thinking that cuts across academic and professional boundaries and the divide between social and physical sciences to move towards a transdiciplinary approach to environmental and social problem-solving. This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Design for Sustainability presents examples of integrated systems design based on ecological principles and concepts and drawn from the foremost designers in the fields of industrial design, materials, housing design, urban planning and transport, landscape and permaculture, and energy and resource management.

This volume is a technical and operative contribution to the United Nations "Decade on Education for Sustainable Development" (2005-2014), aiding the development of a new generation of designers, responsible and able in the task of designing environmentally sustainable products. The book provides a comprehensive framework and a practical tool to support the design process. This is an important text for those interested in the product development processes.

The first devoted overview to the field, The Handbook of Design for Sustainability is the authoratative text on sustainable design.

"Pixels use electricity. If the internet were a country, it would be the sixth largest in terms of electricity use. The average web page (according to the HTTP Archive) is now over 2 megabytes in size. Bloated websites lead to slow load times, frustrated users, and wasted energy. This book identifies four key areas where sustainability principles can be applied to the process of creating websites that are speedy, user-friendly and energy-efficient: findability, performance optimization, design and user experience, and green hosting. Design and user experience (UX) are where the seeds of web sustainability are sown. Websites that provide a streamlined experience--putting the right things in front of users at precisely the moment needed and nothing more--are more sustainable websites. In the case of the web, people-friendly is also more planet-friendly. This book will help you get there."--Provided by publisher.