TreeHugger has an excellent article about how a website’s color scheme can actually impact power usage of its audience. Actually, it makes perfect sense, I just had never really thought about it. If Google switched their background to black, it would have 750 Megawatt-Hours a year. According to the Department of Energy, this would roughly be enough to power the state of Pennsylvania for an average month of consumption. Frankly, I never would have thought the numbers would be so staggering.
As can be expected, some eco-minded folks are already changing their bright-color-schemed ways – such as ecoIron with an energy efficient color scheme. Even the slightest glance at this blog’s design shows how energy inefficient it is. White is by far the highest consumer of energy with red not too far behind. All of this is spelled out very clearly from another DOE page. Some Random Dude is the web equivalent to the Hummer. Yeah, this all sounds funny to myself as well.
So what to do? Do we all change our vibrant ways? I would like to scale things back a tad from this site, but I am very cautious of ruining the site’s identity. Either way, this is an interesting topic in the theoretical sense. Does design on the web need to start accounting for energy efficiency for the end user? Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that with every passing day, web design becomes more and more like industrial design.
The Discussion
13 Comments on “Daily Delicious – A Black Google Saves Energy”anymatters
22.02.2007 4:46 pmwe can start thinking of that. why not?
speaking of which, what are the color codes for those low wattage colors?
somerandomdude
22.02.2007 5:21 pmanymatters – Couldn’t agree more with you.
These are the hex values for that color scheme – hope it helps. :)
#822007 (rusty red), #000000 (black), #b2bbc0 (blue-grey), #19472a (forest-ish green), #3d414c (cobalt-ish), #ffffff (white)
anymatters
22.02.2007 5:51 pmO thanks a lot. I much appreciate it for this quick response. Cheers.
Daily Delicious - A Black Google Saves Energy » SOME RANDOM DUDE « Matt’s Cuppa
22.02.2007 7:01 pm[...] Posted by telecommatt on February 22nd, 2007 Daily Delicious – A Black Google Saves Energy » SOME RANDOM DUDE TreeHugger has an excellent article about how a website’s color scheme can actually impact power usage of its audience. Actually, it makes perfect sense, I just had never really thought about it. If Google switched their background to black, it would have 750 Megawatt-Hours a year. According to the Department of Energy, this would roughly be enough to power the state of Pennsylvania for an average month of consumption. [...]
anymatters
22.02.2007 11:14 pmHi, I’ve applied the colors in my blog as an option theme. thanks.
For OurSelfs
11.05.2007 1:07 amSaving Energy will help Our Eyes? Better Help Our Eyes First…….
Raghav
11.05.2007 6:20 amGood concept..but Black Color creates eye strain and people cant look at that site for more time. So Black can be used depending upon the situation it required.
thanks
somerandomdude
11.05.2007 8:58 amFor OurSelfs & Raghav – I really think a lot of it has to do with how the color schemes are implemented. I think there are plenty of ways in this instance to have your cake and eat it too.
For OurSelfs
21.05.2007 8:57 amGoogle can give Option to Optimize the search Web Page…..
For OurSelfs
21.05.2007 9:12 amThat Means can give user options to change accordingly.
1David
6.07.2007 4:01 amSee http://blacklys.com – The Black Google
They have a firefox Search Extension too.. Interesting..
Krista
16.08.2007 11:45 pmI think its great that people are coming up with ideas on saving energy when using computers or in this case search engines. I don’t use Blackle myself because I’m using a search site that I think is better. It’s called Greenback Search (http://www.greenbacksearch.com/) that is powered by Google. They use eco-friendly colors on their site not just black so its easy on the eyes and the environment. My favorite feature that they have is that they donate part of their profits to Carbonfund.org, an organization that focuses on how to offset the environmental impact of human activity. Check it out for yourselves.
masmax
1.01.2010 4:05 pmI suggest http://www.pixeleco.com
because it’s the best Black Google search engine out there and saves energy too.