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Filip Bech-Larsen , CTO , at open-source . NET
CMS provider , Umbraco
Thomas Morris advises : “ It ’ s common to see custom fonts being used . Consider using system fonts to reduce extra server requests . If you do have to use custom fonts then compression tools such as WOFF2 , will help to minimise the data weight . WOFF2 is supported across all modern browsers .”
3 . Choose colours wisely
Web designers can even reduce the energy consumed on users ’ devices by changing the colours selected for a website . Research presented by Google at the Android Dev Summit in 2018 showed that , on newer OLED screens , green hues use 580mW at full brightness , red uses 600mW , and blue consumes 800mW . A completely white screen at full screen brightness uses six times the power of a black screen . Designing websites that default to Dark Mode is the more sustainable choice .
page weight budgets and stick to them . This helps to create a culture of optimisation with realistic targets . The HTTP Archive suggests a maximum of 1 Megabyte .”
2 . Compress images and fonts
Compressing website images is an immediate way to reduce web page data weight . Thomas Morris continues : “ One of the biggest impacts you can have , with fairly minimal effort , is to use appropriately-sized images on your website , or consider whether images are needed at all . Using modern image compression
We must start to consider data transfer as a constraint in all of our digital projects .
formats , such as WebP , or AVIF helps reduce file sizes by up to 70 % compared to JPEGs , without your users noticing any difference . Optimise images before upload , to reduce the extra compute effort of resizing images . Where appropriate , consider using SVG icons , logos or illustrations , since these often result in smaller image file sizes and also scale easily without compromising image quality .”
4 . Default to Dark Mode
“ Dark mode has been a first-class citizen on the web since 2013 and has been supported in all browsers since 2018 . It ’ s very simple to set up and can be built on incrementally ,” said Rick Butterfield , Development Team Lead at Nexer Digital .
As with a lot of the best practices outlined by the Sustainability Team , these changes benefit end-users too . “ A university study found that switching from light mode to dark mode at 100 % screen brightness can save an average of 40 % battery power , so users don ’ t have to charge devices as often ,” said Butterfield .
5 . Clean up unused content
It ’ s a very good practice to regularly review which web pages and content are being visited , on a monthly or quarterly basis . Redundant content is sitting on a hosting provider ’ s server somewhere and still using energy resources and funds .
6 . Keep software updated
James Hobbs , Head of Engineering , at Great State , advises : “ Simply by keeping libraries , frameworks
The experts also warn that stock images are often very large files and are best avoided .
Minimising text assets , including HTML documents , JavaScript files and CSS files is also a really good practice . Google ’ s Brotli is a lossless compression tool supported by 96 % of browsers that makes this a lot easier and reduces text-based files by around two thirds .
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