100 points to know about...
Eco-Design Web Development

As previously stated, content management has a significant impact on the level of sustainability of websites. We have seen simple good practices such as compressing images and paying attention to the weight of videos, but the links between marketing, content and sustainability can be explored further.

First coined by Herbert Simon, the 1970s Nobel Prize winning economist, the term and concept of “Attention Economy” has never been more meaningful than today. Indeed, the boom in digital content has led companies and content creators to a fight to catch our attention. A lot of business models rely on the ad space a company or a creator can sell, so everything is shaped to increase it by hooking us as much as possible. Over the past decades, most digital marketing strategic principles have been developed to this end. Personalised ads and recommendations, Autoplay, infinite scroll, pop-ups and all those well-spread methods are designed to increase the number of views, the time spent by visitors on platforms, the amount of content consumed and the quantity of data collected.

Sustainable web design leads us to question this system to put forward a more sober approach of content and marketing. And contrary to how it may appear, it does not necessarily imply sacrificing performance. In fact, eco-design offers opportunities to rethink digital content and marketing strategies. If well thought-out, it can even add value to your content and improve your results, creating an interesting virtuous circle. Let us see why and how green content and marketing can be a winning strategy.

Sobriety in the battle for attention : the art of being “powerfully simple”

Remember we are all constantly overwhelmed by content suggestions in our digital environment. To attract and engage users, you don’t necessarily need plenty of content or expensive fancy animations. Getting straight to the point with clever and sober content can be a better strategy to catch attention.

An article published by the British media Design Week outlines the case of Jason Bradberry, a UK-based designer, who recently worked on the redesign for Becolourful, a brand voice consultancy. The website takes a low-carbon approach, making use of the studio’s brand colours and prioritising text over video-heavy case studies. The founder of Becolourful Emily Penny explains that this approach was a useful way of thinking about Becolourful’s offering – instead of compiling all the work the studio has ever done, it provided an opportunity to hone in on its services. “Websites can get out of control and become a Wikipedia of everything an agency knows about their discipline,” she says. “But in doing that you lose your big message, the one you want to be remembered for.”

To go further, go and check the article on Design Week website https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-november-2021/carbon-footprint/

Give your content several lives

Give priority to quality over quantity. Limit you production to a small amount of well thought-out content with high added value. If your content is rich enough, it will be able to live several lives, to be recycled and reinvented over time and on several communication channels : websites, social media, press releases, ad campaigns etc. Creating such powerful content is a challenge, but it can be a wiser, more efficient and more meaningful way to use your workforce.

Strengthen the impact of your message by creating trustworthy content

Consumers become more and more aware of the carbon foot-print of the web. Respecting the fundamental principles of eco-design and, as we have seen earlier, raising awareness through a clever carbon-conscious approach can add an interesting value to your content. It will make your message more engaging and trustworthy.

Widen your audience by creating simple, accessible and sustainable content

Eco-design can help you widen your audience because :

• It improves SEO. To learn more about this fact, check Notion 12 in Module O4.
• Eco-design and accessibility are closely related. The more sober and simple your website is, the more inclusive it will be. To know more about this, check Notion 14 in Module 5.

Personalised experiences : between sustainability and user needs

You can offer several content choices to users in order to create customized experiences which fit with their real needs. As discussed earlier, on your website you can choose to display images only on explicit request of the user, rather than loading and displaying them systematically. Or you can offer the choice between a video and a podcast which give the same information but will fit with different contexts. Doing so, you will widen possibilities while offering a carbon-aware digital experience.