Re: "Green Mode" Design

Hi Ismael (and Community),

Your post definitely rings true on a number of points. One thing I'd pick up on is that the first green mode toggle that I'm aware of being utilised within browsers was the "print friendly" library / extension which reduced paper and ink wastage by automatically eliminating unnecessary elements from the output (leading to the saving of millions of trees and expensive cartridges). We then had the more recent invention (much needed) of CSS preference queries which have APIs to detect stuff like dark mode, but more importantly for us... reduced motion (less power requirements), monochrome (OLED display reduced battery usage), and upcoming queries like reduced data (yay), scripting (progressive enhancement!) and more.

I'm actually working on a library that will improve upon existing print CSS codebases (to be more eco friendly) and have more useful features - if this is likely to be of use to your extension I can pass you details. Aside from that maybe a JavaScript framework that utilises best practices to make a site more sustainable from the developers end could work? It wouldn't be as good as best-practice from scratch (obviously) but a drop-in solution that can make subtle improvements to all visitors is better than nothing (I'll have to ponder on the idea further).

Alex Dawson

________________________________
From: Ismael Velasco <ismaelv.dev@gmail.com>
Sent: 16 July 2022 12:33
To: public-sustyweb@w3.org <public-sustyweb@w3.org>
Subject: "Green Mode" Design

Hello all.

At Chris Adams' urging I am posting here seeking your feedback on a blog post proposing the adoption of what I'm calling "green mode design", integrating the design principles of "graceful degradation" and "user control and freedom" for emissions reduction, climate justice and extended hardware obsolescence with all the downstream benefits in terms of mineral extraction, waste and lifecycle emissions.

https://ismaelvelasco.dev/green-mode-design-through-graceful-degradation

If you know of any examples, please let me know. I will be building an open source POC browser extension in the coming weeks.