Within this post I will be talking about how my prototype website for “PC” is ethical and sustainable.
Ethicality:
One way the website is ethical is simply by avoiding selling users information to third party data brokers, this is done to gain the trust of users and have a welcoming website that users can feel safe browsing, this ultimately leads to user retention.
Another way the website is ethical is by the use of the general English language, this practically means that the text alongside images and headers will not be alienated with the use of words like “Methodologies” where the word “Methods” can be used instead, in addition users will feel more welcomed to the website, instead of the website trying to be too professional, ultimately leading to recurring users.
Finally another way the website is ethical is by the use of a choice made notification system, once creating an account in the sign-up page users have the option to opt in/out in any email/SMS updates, this is ethical as it does not force users to receive random messages that may seem annoying to some, instead of forcing, there is a choice in receiving any notifications.
Sustainability:
Firstly, I have made my website quite sustainable with the use of green hosting, this will be done by minimising the amount of pages the website will hold, an example of this is to add the “about us” section into the Homepage as having an extra page can be seen as wasteful by increasing energy costs. The “about us” page perfectly fits into the Homepage as users will want to learn about “PC” the second they click on the website, this will reduce the time it takes for users to navigate the website and find out simple information about “PC”, therefore having a positive user experience.
Secondly, images on pages like “our projects” will be compressed to a lower quality to save energy, plus having 4K images that just display a star rating is very wasteful of energy as it does not need high quality to be understood on what it displays.
Finally, another way that the website will become sustainable is by avoiding to use custom fonts, a large portion of custom fonts with multiple types will increase the energy consumption of the website. The prototype website has overcame this by having a generic Arial typeface used for information along the website, some places will use a different typeface like Impact, but it will only be a few words meaning large amounts of energy consumption will not be taken.
What’s Working/Needs Refining?
Creating a notification system via SMS or Email has been working well and tested with satisfactory results. One sustainability area that needs refining is the image compression within the website, this is because peers have stated that the images still are way to clear for no reason when quality can drop a little and save some energy.