The Role of Green UX Design in Creating a Sustainable Future

Manab J Kharkatary
0707 Digital Agency
2 min readMay 9, 2022
One of the early steps to a clean planet begins with a green design

What is green design as a concept?

The concept of green UI/UX design sprang from a need to make way for minimalism, what with an excessive utilization of technology in designing products for humans.

Sustainability became a clarion call, especially when an IEA report revealed that data centres and data transmission networks accounted for 1% each of global electricity usage.

Green design was therefore, but imminent to usher in a sustainable future, without compromising on usability. It is an attempt at making things right, at spreading awareness among designers to limit the impact of UX design on climate change and reduce carbon footprint.

Role of green UX design toward sustainability

Providing better user experience is the primary objective of all UX designers, a task that becomes more delicate when usability has to be married to energy efficiency for sustainability.

Forecast of mobile devices worldwide from 2020 to 2025 according to Statista
Forecast of mobile devices worldwide from 2020 to 2025 according to Statista

Number of mobile devices worldwide stood at 14.91 billion in 2021. Add to that crazy number the fact that North America is expected to have hosted 218 million 5G connections in 2021.

While this statistics immediately gives way to concern, it also provides a unique opportunity for designers wherein they’re inspired to create minimal designs that can reduce carbon footprint and improve energy efficiency.

Green UX can create sustainability through several initiatives, some of which are:

1. Design optimization

Lesser steps, clearer information and simpler designs lead to easy navigation, and thus better user experience.

2. Mobile optimization

Smaller screens meaning lesser design elements to fit in, which invariably will result in energy efficiency.

3. Performance optimization

Limiting data on devices to only what’s necessary, switching to renewable energy servers and using lighter graphics is how you optimize your devices for performance and go green at the same time.

Continue to the main article to know more on the role of UX design in creating a sustainable future.

About us: We are a UX design agency in Philadelphia that deeply cares about climate change and the planet that we live in. We consciously conceptualize and create designs optimized for best user experience, while reducing the strain on the environment to the minimum.

Contact us: Book 0707 to introduce green UX design into your product and brand identity.

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Manab J Kharkatary
0707 Digital Agency

When we write, do we right (the wrongs) or do we just ride with the pack?