From sustainable design principles to practical W3C guidelines: Making digital sustainability happen through UX design

Contributing to the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines, I enjoyed working with talented editors and UX professionals to shape 21 guidelines in the User Experience Design category. In this post, I spotlight selected guidelines, reflecting on how they were written, and how they encapsulate the ethos of the principles behind them. The W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines […]

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Shaping the future of the sustainable web: The advent and development of the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines

For the past year I have been part of a UX task force developing the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines. As the guidelines reach the milestone of Draft Note status, I reflect on what they stand to achieve, and share insights from our process to make these guidelines as useful and usable as possible. Increasingly, websites […]

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Making a website better for users and the environment: Working on digital sustainability with Edinburgh Innovations

Last year, our Green Digital Design Intern audited the Edinburgh Innovations website for digital sustainability, and made several recommendations. This year’s internship went further – researching how users actually interacted with the site and uncovering potential to improve both the site’s UX and its environmental impact. In 2024 the UX Service and the wider Website […]

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User-centred, planet-focused: How UX and digital sustainability drove a 20% cut in the digital footprint of the Careers Service website

A green digital design internship hosted by the UX Service in summer 2025 prompted us to consider how digital housekeeping could support the efforts of the Careers Service team to streamline their website. In the process, the Careers Service emerged as admirable case study, promoting the benefits of combining both UX and digital sustainability for […]

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Making an impact with ThingLink

The Interactive Content team used ThingLink to create interactive learning materials for two Careers Services projects: ‘Skills For Success Framework’ and ‘Riding the Wave’. They chose ThingLink for its ability to add interactivity to graphics and its ease of embedding into EdWeb. The team collaborated with the Graphics Design service to create engaging and accessible content using ThingLink’s scenes and tags features.

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Data is Meaningless

Ok, well not totally meaningless. But it certainly isn’t always the untouchable source of truth that is often perceived to be. Throughout my “Green Web Platforms” internship I have focused so much on trying to find data. Data on energy usage, energy grid carbon intensity, and equipment manufacturing, to be ultimately used as the ingredients […]

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