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You know it’s bad when even the science people are pissed

Sustainable and inclusive design in the era of accelerated decay.

Rita Kind-Envy
UX Collective
Published in
6 min read4 days ago

A classical still-life painting depicting baskets of ripe red, white, and purple grapes with autumn leaves in a warm, dark-toned setting.
Grapes of Spain by María Luisa de la Riva (source)

Sustainable design is in danger

One of the best books on Content Design was the one that taught me sustainable writing. From “Sustainable Content,” I learned that:

  1. Being mindful of how we structure and deliver content can reduce unnecessary energy use (which is involved in every digital action — from sending a message to opening a web page).
  2. Smaller content is more energy efficient. Shorter web pages, optimized images, and compressed files help cut down on unnecessary data use. Basically, I get to ignore one of the most useless words in the online text — “please” — like in “Please [do X]” — and I get to do it in the name of sustainability.
  3. The more we rely on AI-generated content, the more hidden energy demands we create.

So, yes, thank you, Alisa Bonsignore, for your book.

But now, there’s another problem. I can’t save the planet by trimming web pages at work in the name of sustainability if one man in power is withdrawing billions from climate change organizations.

User Experience is above politics…

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Written by Rita Kind-Envy

I'm a UX writer who mostly writes about writing. Sometimes I write about other things, though.

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