UX Camp Winter 2024
How New W3C Guidelines Could Impact UX Designers
Twenty years ago, the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) armed digital product teams with tools to improve how the web works for people with disabilities. In turn, these guidelines have influenced accessibility legislation in dozens of countries and measurably improved the web experience for the up to one billion people worldwide who identify as having some sort of physical or cognitive disability.
In late 2023, the first-ever Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSGs), produced by a W3C community group, aim to do the same for sustainability.
In this session, Tim Frick, co-chair of the W3C group and an editor of the WSG specification, will share how these 93 evidence-based guidelines can improve the social and environmental impacts of digital products and services we design and build.
The presentation will cover how UX designers can incorporate the WSGs into existing processes to:
- Influence customer behavior to promote circularity and sustainability
- Improve performance, efficiency, and accessibility
- Reduce digital emissions, especially Scope 3
- Prolong product lifespan and reduce e-waste
- Align these efforts with existing sustainability reporting standards like GRI
We’ll also cover why these guidelines should exist under the umbrella of a web standards body like W3C and how that might influence future legislation, like the EU’s CSRD and California’s Climate Disclosure Regulations.
Our industry can’t effectively address big, wicked problems like climate change or social inequality without fundamentally changing how we design, develop, and manage digital products and services. This session will share some actionable takeaways on how UX designers can achieve this.
