5 min read • Nov 17th, 2023
Glow OS: greening the Internet through energy-aware digital experiences
INFO
Master thesis project in Interaction Design at Umea Institute of Design
ROLE & TIMELINE
Individual work,
20 weeks, 2023
METHODS
User Interviews, Ecosystem Map, Problem Scoping, Surveys, Prototyping, Workshops, User Journeys, User Flow, Testing, Scenarios, Storyboarding.
How might we align online activities to green energy available on the grid?
This project investigates:
This project pose a question about potential change in behavioural patterns:
Are end-users willing to “slow down” digital consumption, face inconveniences today, to cultivate a more sustainable future tomorrow?
3 min pitch • UID23 Grad Show •
THE RESULT
Exploration • Solar Literacy
The Internet is rapidly growing in complexity, with increasing negative environmental impact. While heating and lighting are tangible examples of energy consumption, internet usage is not perceived as such. Therefore, it opens up opportunities for new, energy-efficient, slower, resource-saving and mindful protocols for the Internet to emerge.
Proposal • Glow OS
I propose Glow OS - which explores a near-future scenario of an operating system enabling individuals and communities to align online activities with intermittent solar energy to accelerate the transition to a fossil-free internet.
Functional features of Glow OS
Energy card - communicating if pixels are powered by solar or fossil fuels
Digital garden - the more aligned you are over time, the more flowers would grow
P2P chat - Non wifi? No problem. Let’s use a Peer-2-peer network chat for important comms
Smart prep - download any content in a time of greener energy to enjoy later on
Low-energy presence - instead of video, an alternative type of facetiming
Wheel of Fortune - in the time of downtime, remind yourself of things you enjoy doing offline
INTRO
THEMES
Technological innovation is taking an environmental toll.
Nowadays, our online activities cost 3,7% of global emissions (Freitag et al., 2021) and it is more than the aviation industry. While flying in a public debate is associated with an environmentally destructive practice, the notion of the Internet being pollutive remains unfamiliar (Borning, Friedman and Logler, 2020).
This invisible impact of the Internet was something that I wanted to explore further. I was particularly interested in how to inspire a change of mindset from "dig, burn, use" to stewardship of the natural cycles of abundance and scarcity of resources around us and wondered if it is something that can be integrated into the Internet consumption itself.
Some themes emerging along the way:
DIGITAL RIGHTS AND CLIMATE JUSTICE INTERSECT
How can we ensure Internet access to all, while making it less environmentally harmful?
“THE CLOUD” IS FOSSIL FUEL POWERED
How can we uncover harm that digital consumption has on the planet?
SAYING “NO” TO “BUSINESS AS USUAL”
How can we uncover harm that digital consumption has on the planet?
BEYOND CARBON AND DATA
How to communicate climate impact in a non-data driven way? What are other non-data heavy ways of expressing complexity?
RADICAL OPTIMISM
How to share a positive vision of a potentially resource scarce future?
INTERNET AS A BICYCLE, AND NOT A HIGHWAY
What if Internet is a bicycle and not a highway to the mind?
PLANETARY SCALE MEETS HUMAN SCALE
How can we integrate sustainable behaviours effortlessly in the users’ context?
PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
How to assess digital realm within planetary boundaries?
INTERNET WAS LIKE A GARDEN ONCE
What if this paradigm changes, and we treat Internet like a wild garden, with more acceptance for its imperfections and quirkiness?
PROCESS OVERVIEW
The topic was vast and complex, and I purposely intended to not to scope it too early.
Therefore, I prototyped variety of concepts early on in the process that enabled to learn from the users as early as possible, and that drove the process.
I went through the end-to-end design process, staying flexible and reacting and adjusting after each phase to what was needed at the time.
RESEARCH: PLAN
Research question
How to design environmentally-aware digital experiences that reflect ecological limits?
I began the research with a broad question trusting that I will find anchors to position my project as I converge through a series of planned activities enabling a good enough coverage of the topic, which included:
1. Gathering green software expert’s perspectives in various mappings: search for a research gap.
2. Planetary boundary: mapping out the impact of the Internet consumption and early signals of what is being done.
“Every design has physical implications, from the amount of energy that it takes to power an experience to the real-world choices users make based on the information we present and the stories we tell.”
- (Friedman, J., Romano, R. 2022)
→ engaging with experts
→ engaging with end-users
→ understanding the environmental impact of Internet consumption
3. Experiment with end-users exploring how do they relate to carbon footprint of their digital consumption.
RESEARCH: FRAMING
Questions for interaction design:
Identified problems:
RESEARCH: TESTING AND INTERVIEWING
Gaining more concreteness:
Outcome: This experiment brought a lot of interesting issues and tensions to the surface that are formulated in 9 user stories.
Reflection:
This material gave me much insight into how people relate to carbon as a metric and provided leading clues to how complex and nuanced the area of behavioural change is.
User stories:
Reformulation:
How to design an environementally-aware digital experiences?
How does a resource-saving, energy-aware Internet that empowers people can look like?
RESEARCH
CARDS
Synthesizing research
Based on user stories, formulated principles, and other insights from the research, I created research cards that helped me to summarise the research and enter the concept phase with actionable areas for further exploration.
SCENARIOS
What if the Internet is running solely on renewable energy and being fully weather-dependent, therefore intermittent.
What if it is unavailable in periods with lack of sun and wind and there is a seasonal pattern to its availability based on location.
What if the Internet is energy-aware and transformable, actively aligning with the clean energy available on the grid, which means it dynamically changes its functionalities and appearance if the energy shifts.
It moves, shrinks and expands, organically.
The third scenario envisions digital experiences that are fully transparent about their ecological impact. It opens up to the economy that includes the cost of negative externalities associated with goods and services.
CONCEPTS OVERVIEW
CONCEPTS TESTED
if you enjoyed these explorations, please visit → Notion with my report for more
UI assets communicating the idea of lack of Internet due to weather and type of energy on the grid.
Green Mode for Spotify that automatically switches to low-data mode once the grid changes
Digital Passport reveals layers of digital impact that have very material consequences
Carbon Glitch visualizes the “heaviness” of digital consumption in a poetic way
A conversation starter: imagine your Internet is fully dependable on Mother Nature.
Network adaptive Youtube transforms into a pixelated imagery, audio only or a presentation deck
Thruth-teller is rebelling against planned obsolescence and tells brutal truth about its components
On demand is a version of a feed that becomes text based when fossil fuels are on the grid
LEARNINGS FROM TESTING
POSITIONING
How to design an environementally-aware digital experiences?
How can people align their online activities with renewable energy in a spirit of joy?
What if we can package this behavioral change in a joyful experience, instead of widely used narratives applied in the context of sustainability, that induce guilt, fight or flight response, or encourage denial?
Survey about daily joys
Workshop on speculative artifacts
Workshop on joyful user journeys
FINAL RESULT
Thank you!
💚 🌞 I'm incredibly honoured to announce that my thesis project promoting digital sustainability "Solar Literacy" won the “Golden Seed Award”! 🌞 💚
I would like to express my gratitude to the UID Climate Group for organizing the award and inspiring actions for social and environmental sustainability - it has motivated me greatly to address climate change in my own thesis project years ago.
Thank you again for this recognition and for the best celebratory moment!
