jawache
commented
5 months ago Hi @sgiori11, let me try to answer some of your questions:
- Is this feasible and allowed? (We work in front-end dev/UX roles, with some backend knowledge)
I'd start off simply with writing just a manifest file which represents some sample usage of an application, say it's a web app and a pipeline that estimates the carbon up front. Given this is the design stage you're not measuring something that exists but something that might exist, maybe that could be something like a typical basic application with 24 hours of usage at 100 users per minute or something like that. The closest manifest file we have to that is the co2js based one, it estimates emissions based of network traffic, co2js was designed to measure emissions of a website and assumes most of the emissions are from the data the browser loads, you could use that as a baseline: https://github.com/Green-Software-Foundation/if/blob/main/examples/manifests/co2js.yml
Then create a plugin like you propose which adjust the observations in such a way that represents the design patterns, like you suggest it could be something as simple as if infinite scroll add 100%, if popup, add 50%.
I think given that it's a coefficient style plugin you could argue that you take an input of carbon and just multiply it by a coefficient and output an adjusted carbon value again.
The plugin might be configured to take as input some params which it then uses to adjust the carbon value, like so:
my-ux-pattern-plugin:
global-config:
infinate-scroll: true
has-popup: false
parameter-to-adjust: carbon
...Once you've got a manifest file and a plugin that adjust the numbers according to the configuration in order to integrate into figma I might suggest something in figma which then generates a manifest file with you plugin configured with the settings configured, run it locally, extract out the carbon valye from the output manifest file and then show that to the user.
Even if you just managed to create a manifest file and some learnings about how to adjust the carbon it computes based on addictive design patterns and wrote that up, it could be by itself a great case study to submit as a best content submission so you'll have options if you don't get as far as writing a plugin.
- Any ideas on how we could map deceptive or addictive design patterns to a carbon output value?
This one I'm really not sure about, you might need to dive into reading some papers on the subject if there are any, having some research to back up the coefficient choices would be important. There are two books that might help and this website https://sustainablewebdesign.org/guideline-categories/user-experience-design/ and the sustainable web design book by tom greenwood as well as the older but still relevant designing for sustainability by tom frick.
Hope the above helps and good luck!
tofols
barronbytes
sgiori11
Prize category
Best Contribution to the Framework
Overview
We propose developing a Figma plugin (or a regular plugin, if that's not allowed) that uses Impact Framework to provide environmental impact assessments to UI/UX designers during the design phase. The goal is to inform designers of the potential carbon footprint of their designs before those designs get shipped, while also highlighting any deceptive design patterns like infinite scroll or default newsletter opt-ins.
I think we'll need to create some type of 'carbon impact multiplier' to quantify the additional environmental costs of addictive design patterns.
The reinforcement loop of addictive designs --> higher carbon outputs --> poorer mental health outcomes could also be mentioned, although we're not sure how to include this.
Questions to be answered
Have you got a project team yet?
Yes and we are now complete :)
Project team
@sgiori11 @joakim-andersson
Terms of Participation