Who is RARE Conservation?

RARE Conservation is a conservation group that works from the local level up rather than from the national or enterprise level down. Though Rare’s effort is directed at community-based change, rather than attempting to work directly with communities, Rare offers local individuals educational opportunities and supports their efforts to increase local awareness and engagement with ecological issues through “Pride Campaigns,” which use applied social science solutions to address conservation issues.

Web Presence:

• Site: RARE Conservation (Drupal): http://www.rareconservation.org/
• Community: RarePlanet (Drupal): http://www.rareplanet.org/en
• Blog: Adventures in Conservation (WordPress): http://www.rareconservation.org/blog/
• Social Media
  • Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RareConservation
  • LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/rare-conservation
  • Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/rareplanet
  • Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rareplanet/sets/
  • YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/rareconservation

Other Links:

• Alexa Web Ranking: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rareconservation.org#
• Phase II Technologies about their work with Rare: http://www.phase2technology.com/project/rare-conservation

What do I like about their web presence?

• Platform: Drupal / Phase II Technologies: Both Rare’s main website , RAREConservation, and social community site, RarePlanet, use Drupal for their code base. It appears that the community site was built alongside an existing website, which was then relaunched using Drupal. In both cases the contractor was Phase II Technologies, a leader in Drupal implementation.
• Organization / UI : The site’s clean look and consistent iconography make navigation simple, as does the advanced search functionality, though the use of the left rail for search options is distracting, as this is typically located on the right rail.
• Multi-Language Format: Playing on one of Drupal’s strengths the site’s ability to present in different languages is very exciting, and in the case of an international grass roots organization, mission critical.
• Functionality: Facebook Connect Login – Though there is no login on the RARE Conservation side, being fully publicly accessible, the member community, located at RarePlanet.org allows login by site-specific login, Open ID, or Facebook Connect. In my experience, the number one issue users have with online services is the proliferation of websites, and I’ve been advocating the use of Facebook Connect as an answer to this issue.
• Scalability/Cross Platform: All pages scale well onto various devices. Both the website and blog work especially well on the iPad. The front page banner is better than average for a Drupal site, with a well-styled page indicator / navigator button overlaying the graphic.

What don’t I like about their web presence?

• Website and Community are disconnected – Though the “Interact with RARE” icon on the right sidebar takes you to RarePlanet, there’s no indication that it will do so. In fact, a search for RarePlanet does not come up with any obvious links to the community site.
• WordPress Blog / Drupal Site – I assume that the WordPress blog predates the Drupal site, or the blog on RareConservation would be integrated with the site, as it is on RarePlanet. Migrating the blog content to the Drupal site isn’t too hard to do, but there may be user issues to consider, as Drupal editing can be less user-friendly than WordPress.
• Open Layout – Too much of a good thing? While the RareConservation and RarePlanet sites both do a very good job of showing uncluttered content with strongly directive buttons to drive users into the sites, the undifferentiated text has a tendency to bleed the readers attention off the page, especially as they get further down into text-only sections. A slight shading to the background could provide a difference between field and content areas and help focus readers.
• My Profile (RarePlanet): Member information publicly available without the user granting permission. The member’s My Profile editing section needs to be themed more in keeping with the rest of the pages. At present it looks more like an administrative view of a taxonomy panel without visual cues as to how to fill it out, and suffers from classic Drupal starkness.
• Logout behavior: When a member logs off RarePlanet, they get get an Access Denied message on the page that results. While this is normal Drupal behavior, it still strikes me as poor UI.
• Note: the “How to apply to the Rare Pride program?” link for Espanol, goes to a “Page Not Found” error at: http://www.rareconservation.org/es/%C2%BFc%C3%B3mo-aplicar
• Wikipedia entry – Not found. Creating one seems like an opportunity worth pursuing.